MATH 1281-01 Statistical Inference
Assignment
PART I
A sample was taken randomly of 675 families in the Dominican Republic, 232 responded
they could not afford $300 unexpected expenses without tapping into loans.
1. Define the population in this survey:
- The population is all families in the Dominican Republic.
2. What is the population parameter estimated in this survey?
- The true proportion (p) of families who cannot afford $300 unexpected expenses without
loans.
3. What is the point estimate for the parameter?
- Point estimate: p̂ = 232 / 675 ≈ 0.3437 (34.37%).
4. What is the statistic used to measure the uncertainty of the point estimate? Compute the
statistic.
- The statistic is the standard error (SE) of the sample proportion.
- Formula: SE = sqrt( p̂ (1 - p̂ ) / n ).
- Calculation: SE = sqrt( 0.3437 * (1 - 0.3437) / 675 ) ≈ 0.0183.
5. Consider the true population value is found to be 40%. Would the resulting value change
much if we were to recompute SE using p=0.4?
- SE (p=0.4) = sqrt( 0.4 * (1 - 0.4) / 675 ) ≈ 0.0189.
- The difference (0.0189 – 0.0183 ≈ 0.0006) is very small. Thus, the change is negligible.
PART II
A cinema theatre conducted a random sample on 504 viewers over a period of a year and
found that 124 of them made their visit because of a coupon they had received in their mail.
We want to construct a 95% confidence interval for the fraction of all viewers who made a
visit because of a coupon.
1. Point estimate:
- p̂ = 124 / 504 ≈ 0.2460 (24.60%).
2. Standard error:
- SE = sqrt( p̂ (1 - p̂ ) / n )
- SE = sqrt( 0.246 * 0.754 / 504 ) ≈ 0.0192.
3. Margin of error (ME):
- For 95% CI, z = 1.96.
- ME = 1.96 * 0.0192 ≈ 0.0376.
4. Confidence interval:
- CI = p̂ ± ME = 0.246 ± 0.0376.
- Interval = (0.208, 0.284).
- Interpretation: We are 95% confident that between 20.8% and 28.4% of all viewers
came because of a coupon.