Suppose that test scores are normally distributed with an unknown mean and standard deviation. The scores of 20 students are used to estimate the mean score. What t-score should be used to find the 90% confidence interval for the population mean score

Respuesta :

Answer:

In order to calculate the critical value [tex]t_{\alpha/2}[/tex] we need to find first the degrees of freedom, given by:

[tex]df=n-1=20-1=19[/tex]

Since the Confidence is 0.90 or 90%, the value of [tex]\alpha=0.1[/tex] and [tex]\alpha/2 =0.05[/tex], and we can use excel, a calculator or a table to find the critical value. The excel command would be: "=-T.INV(0.05,19)".And we see that [tex]t_{\alpha/2}=1.73[/tex]

Step-by-step explanation:

Previous concepts

A confidence interval is "a range of values that’s likely to include a population value with a certain degree of confidence. It is often expressed a % whereby a population means lies between an upper and lower interval".

The margin of error is the range of values below and above the sample statistic in a confidence interval.

Normal distribution, is a "probability distribution that is symmetric about the mean, showing that data near the mean are more frequent in occurrence than data far from the mean".

[tex]\bar X[/tex] represent the sample mean for the sample  

[tex]\mu[/tex] population mean (variable of interest)

s represent the sample standard deviation

n represent the sample size  

Solution to the problem

The confidence interval for the mean is given by the following formula:

[tex]\bar X \pm t_{\alpha/2}\frac{s}{\sqrt{n}}[/tex]   (1)

In order to calculate the mean and the sample deviation we can use the following formulas:  

[tex]\bar X= \sum_{i=1}^n \frac{x_i}{n}[/tex] (2)  

[tex]s=\sqrt{\frac{\sum_{i=1}^n (x_i-\bar X)}{n-1}}[/tex] (3)  

In order to calculate the critical value [tex]t_{\alpha/2}[/tex] we need to find first the degrees of freedom, given by:

[tex]df=n-1=20-1=19[/tex]

Since the Confidence is 0.90 or 90%, the value of [tex]\alpha=0.1[/tex] and [tex]\alpha/2 =0.05[/tex], and we can use excel, a calculator or a table to find the critical value. The excel command would be: "=-T.INV(0.05,19)".And we see that [tex]t_{\alpha/2}=1.73[/tex]

ACCESS MORE