Ryan McKeeler and Howard Hu, two junior statisticians, were discussing the relation between confidence intervals and hypothesis tests. During their discussion each of them made the following statement:
McKeeler: A confidence interval for a two-tailed hypothesis test is calculated as adding and subtracting the product of the standard error and the critical value from the sample statistic. For example, for a level of confidence of 68%, there is a 32% probability that the true population parameter is contained in the interval.
Hu: A 99% confidence interval uses a critical value associated with a given distribution at the 1% level of significance. A hypothesis test would compare a calculated test statistic to that critical value. As such, the confidence interval is the range for the test statistic within which a researcher would not reject the null hypothesis for a two-tailed hypothesis test about the value of the population mean of the random variable.
With respect to the statements made by McKeeler and Hu:
McKeeler’s statement is incorrect. Specifically, for a level of confidence of say, 68%, there is a 68% probability that the true population parameter is contained in the interval. Therefore, there is a 32% probability that the true population parameter is not contained in the interval. Hu’s statement is correct. |