Thinking about Inference

Transcription

1 CHAPTER 15 c Jupiterimages/Age fotostock Thinking about Inference IN THIS CHAPTER WE COVER... To this point, we have met just two procedures for statistical inference. Both concern inference about the mean μ of a population when the simple conditions (page 360) are true: the data are an SRS, the population has a Normal distribution, and we know the standard deviation σ of the population. Under these conditions, a confidence interval for the mean μ is x ± z σ n To test a hypothesis H 0 : μ = μ 0 we use the one-sample z statistic: z = x μ 0 σ/ n We call these z procedures because they both start with the one-sample z statistic and use the standard Normal distribution. In later chapters we will modify these procedures for inference about a population mean to make them useful in practice. We will also introduce procedures for confidence intervals and tests in most of the settings we met in learning to explore data. There are libraries both of books and of software full of more elaborate statistical techniques. The reasoning of confidence intervals and tests is the same, no matter how elaborate the details of the procedure are. Conditions for inference in practice How confidence intervals behave How significance tests behave Planning studies: sample size for confidence intervals Planning studies: the power of a statistical test z procedures 393

2 394 CHAPTER 15 Thinking about Inference There is a saying among statisticians that mathematical theorems are true; statistical methods are effective when used with judgment. That the one-sample z statistic has the standard Normal distribution when the null hypothesis is true is a mathematical theorem. Effective use of statistical methods requires more than knowing such facts. It requires even more than understanding the underlying reasoning. This chapter begins the process of helping you develop the judgment needed to use statistics in practice. That process will continue in examples and exercises through the rest of this book. CAUTION Conditions for inference in practice Any confidence interval or significance test can be trusted only under specific conditions. It s up to you to understand these conditions and judge whether they fit your problem. With that in mind, let s look back at the simple conditions for the z procedures. The final simple condition, that we know the standard deviation σ of the population, is rarely satisfied in practice. The z procedures are therefore of little practical use. Fortunately, it s easy to remove the known σ condition. Chapter 17 shows how. The first two simple conditions (SRS, Normal population) are harder to escape. In fact, they represent the kinds of conditions needed if we are to trust almost any statistical inference. As you plan inference, you should always ask Where did the data come from? and you must often also ask What is the shape of the population distribution? This is the point where knowing mathematical facts gives way to the need for judgment. Where did the data come from? The most important requirement for any inference procedure is that the data come from a process to which the laws of probability apply. Inference is most reliable when the data come from a random sample or a randomized comparative experiment. Random samples use chance to choose respondents. Randomized comparative experiments use chance to assign subjects to treatments. The deliberate use of chance ensures that the laws of probability apply to the outcomes, and this in turn ensures that statistical inference makes sense. WHERE THE DATA COME FROM MATTERS When you use statistical inference, you are acting as if your data are a random sample or come from a randomized comparative experiment. CAUTION If your data don t come from a random sample or a randomized comparative experiment, your conclusions may be challenged. To answer the challenge, you must usually rely on subject-matter knowledge, not on statistics. It is common to apply statistical inference to data that are not produced by random selection. When you see such a study, ask whether the data can be trusted as a basis for the conclusions of the study.

3 Conditions for inference in practice 395 EXAMPLE 15.1 The psychologist and the sociologist A psychologist is interested in how our visual perception can be fooled by optical illusions. Her subjects are students in Psychology 101 at her university. Most psychologists would agree that it s safe to treat the students as an SRS of all people with normal vision. There is nothing special about being a student that changes visual perception. A sociologist at the same university uses students in Sociology 101 to examine attitudes toward poor people and antipoverty programs. Students as a group are younger than the adult population as a whole. Even among young people, students as a group come from more prosperous and better-educated homes. Even among students, this university isn t typical of all campuses. Even on this campus, students in a sociology course may have opinions that are quite different from those of engineering students. The sociologist can t reasonably act as if these students are a random sample from any interesting population. Our first examples of inference, using the z procedures, act as if the data are an SRS from the population of interest. Let s look back at the examples in Chapter 14. EXAMPLE 15.2 Is it really an SRS? The NHANES survey that produced the BMI data for Example 14.1 used a complex multistage sample design, so it s a bit oversimplified to treat the BMI data as coming from an SRS from the population of young women. 1 The overall effect of the NHANES sample is close to an SRS. Nonetheless, professional statisticians would use more complex inference procedures to match the more complex design of the sample. Don t touch the plants We know that confounding can distort inference. We don t always recognize how easy it is to confound data. Consider the innocent scientist who visits plants in the field once a week to measure their size. To measure the plants, he has to touch them. A study of six plant species found that one touch a week significantly increased leaf damage by insects in two species and significantly decreased damage in another species. The 18 newts for the skin-healing study in Example 14.3 were chosen from a laboratory population of newts to receive one of several treatments being compared in a randomized comparative experiment. Recall that each treatment group in a completely randomized experiment is an SRS of the available subjects. Scientists usually act as if the available animal subjects are an SRS from their species or genetic type if there is nothing special about where the subjects came from. We can treat these newts as an SRS from this species. The cola taste test in Example 14.5 uses scores from 10 tasters. All were examined to be sure that they have no medical condition that interferes with normal taste and then carefully trained to score sweetness using a set of standard drinks. We are willing to take their scores as an SRS from the population of trained tasters. The medical director who examined executives blood pressures in Example 14.9 actually chose an SRS from the medical records of all executives in this company. These examples are typical. One is an actual SRS, two are situations in which common practice is to act as if the sample were an SRS, and in the remaining example procedures that assume an SRS can be used for a quick analysis of data from a more complex random sample. There is no simple rule for deciding when you can act as if a sample is an SRS. Pay attention to these cautions: CAUTION

4 396 CHAPTER 15 Thinking about Inference Practical problems such as nonresponse in samples or dropouts from an experiment can hinder inference even from a well-designed study. The NHANES survey has about an 80% response rate. This is much higher than opinion polls and most other national surveys, so by realistic standards NHANES data are quite trustworthy. (NHANES uses advanced methods to try to correct for nonresponse, but these methods work a lot better when response is high to start with.) Different methods are needed for different designs. The z procedures aren t correct for random sampling designs more complex than an SRS. Later chapters give methods for some other designs, but we won t discuss inference for really complex designs like that used by NHANES. Always be sure that you (or your statistical consultant) know how to carry out the inference your design calls for. There is no cure for fundamental flaws like voluntary response surveys or uncontrolled experiments. Look back at the bad examples in Chapters 8 and 9 and steel yourself to just ignore data from such studies. Really wrong numbers By now you know that statistics that don t come from properly designed studies are often dubious and sometimes just made up. It s rare to find wrong numbers that anyone can see are wrong, but it does happen. A German physicist claimed that 2006 was the first year since 1441 with more than one Friday the 13th. Sorry: Friday the 13th occurred in February and August of 2004, which is a bit more recent than CAUTION What is the shape of the population distribution? Most statistical inference procedures require some conditions on the shape of the population distribution. Many of the most basic methods of inference are designed for Normal populations. That s the case for the z procedures and also for the more practical procedures for inference about means that we will meet in Chapters 17 and 18. Fortunately, this condition is less essential than where the data come from. This is true because the z procedures and many other procedures designed for Normal distributions are based on Normality of the sample mean x, not Normality of individual observations. The central limit theorem tells us that x is more Normal than the individual observations and that x becomes more Normal as the size of the sample increases. In practice, the z procedures are reasonably accurate for any roughly symmetric distribution for samples of even moderate size. If the sample is large, x will be close to Normal even if individual measurements are strongly skewed, as Figures 11.4 (page 303) and 11.5 (page 305) illustrate. Later chapters give practical guidelines for specific inference procedures. There is one important exception to the principle that the shape of the population is less critical than how the data were produced. Outliers can distort the results of inference. Any inference procedure based on sample statistics like the sample mean x that are not resistant to outliers can be strongly influenced by a few extreme observations. We rarely know the shape of the population distribution. In practice we rely on previous studies and on data analysis. Sometimes long experience suggests that our data are likely to come from a roughly Normal distribution, or not. For example, heights of people of the same sex and similar ages are close to Normal, but weights are not. Always explore your data before doing inference. When the data are chosen at random from a population, the shape of the data distribution mirrors the shape of the population distribution. Make a stemplot or histogram of your data and look to see whether the shape is roughly Normal. Remember that small samples have a lot of chance variation, so that Normality is hard to judge from just a

5 How confidence intervals behave 397 few observations. Always look for outliers and try to correct them or justify their removal before performing the z procedures or other inference based on statistics like x that are not resistant. When outliers are present or the data suggest that the population is strongly non-normal, consider alternative methods that don t require Normality and are not sensitive to outliers. Some of these methods appear in Chapter 25 (available online and on the text CD). APPLY YOUR KNOWLEDGE 15.1 Rate that movie. A professor interested in the opinions of college-age adults about a new hit movie asks the 25 students in her course on documentary filmmaking to rate the entertainment value of the movie on a scale of 0 to 5. Which of the following is the most important reason why a confidence interval for the mean rating by all college-age adults based on these data is of little use? Comment briefly on each reason to explain your answer. (c) The course is small, so the margin of error will be large. Many of the students in the course will probably refuse to respond. The students in the course can t be considered a random sample from the population of all college-age adults Running red lights. A survey of licensed drivers inquired about running red lights. One question asked, Of every ten motorists who run a red light, about how many do you think will be caught? The mean result for 880 respondents was x = 1.92 and the standard deviation was s = For this large sample, s will be close to the population standard deviation σ, so suppose we know that σ = (c) Give a 95% confidence interval for the mean opinion in the population of all licensed drivers. The distribution of responses is skewed to the right rather than Normal. This will not strongly affect the z confidence interval for this sample. Why not? The 880 respondents are an SRS from completed calls among 45,956 calls to randomly chosen residential telephone numbers listed in telephone directories. Only 5029 of the calls were completed. This information gives two reasons to suspect that the sample may not represent all licensed drivers. What are these reasons? 15.3 Sampling shoppers. A marketing consultant observes 50 consecutive shoppers at a supermarket, recording how much each shopper spends in the store. Suggest some reasons why it may be risky to act as if 50 consecutive shoppers at a particular time are an SRS of all shoppers at this store. Ilene MacDonald/Alamy How confidence intervals behave The z confidence interval x ± z σ/ n for the mean of a Normal population illustrates several important properties that are shared by all confidence intervals in common use. The user chooses the confidence level, and the margin of error

6 398 CHAPTER 15 Thinking about Inference follows from this choice. We would like high confidence and also a small margin of error. High confidence says that our method almost always gives correct answers. A small margin of error says that we have pinned down the parameter quite precisely. The factors that influence the margin of error of the z confidence interval are typical of most confidence intervals. How do we get a small margin of error? The margin of error for the z confidence interval is margin of error = z σ n This expression has z and σ in the numerator and n in the denominator. Therefore, the margin of error gets smaller when CAUTION CAUTION z gets smaller. Smaller z is the same as lower confidence level C (look again at Figure 14.3 on page 365). There is a trade-off between the confidence level and the margin of error. To obtain a smaller margin of error from the same data, you must be willing to accept lower confidence. σ is smaller. The standard deviation σ measures the variation in the population. You can think of the variation among individuals in the population as noise that obscures the average value μ. It is easier to pin down μ when σ is small. n gets larger. Increasing the sample size n reduces the margin of error for any confidence level. Larger samples thus allow more precise estimates. However, because n appears under a square root sign, we must take four times as many observations in order to cut the margin of error in half. EXAMPLE 15.3 Changing the margin of error In Example 14.3 (page 366), biologists measured the rate of healing of the skin of 18 newts. The data gave x = micrometers per hour and we know that σ = 8 micrometers per hour. The 95% confidence interval for the mean healing rate for all newts is x ± z σ = ± n 18 = ± 3.70 The 90% confidence interval based on the same data replaces the 95% critical value z = by the 90% critical value z = This interval is x ± z σ n = ± = ± 3.10 Lower confidence results in a smaller margin of error, ±3.10 in place of ±3.70. You can calculate that the margin of error for 99% confidence is larger, ±4.86. Figure 15.1 compares these three confidence intervals.

7 How confidence intervals behave 399 x = is the estimate of the unknown mean μ. 90% confidence FIGURE 15.1 The lengths of three confidence intervals for Example All three are centered at the estimate x = When the data and the sample size remain the same, higher confidence requires a larger margin of error. 95% confidence 99% confidence Mean healing rate (micrometers per hour) If we had a sample of only 9 newts, you can check that the margin of error for 95% confidence increases from ±3.70 to ±5.23. Cutting the sample size in half does not double the margin of error, because the sample size n appears under a square root sign. What does the margin of error include? The most important caution about confidence intervals in general is a consequence of the use of a sampling distribution. A sampling distribution shows how a statistic such as x varies in repeated random sampling. This variation causes random sampling error because the statistic misses the true parameter by a random amount. No other source of variation or bias in the sample data influences the sampling distribution. So the margin of error in a confidence interval ignores everything except the sample-to-sample variation due to choosing the sample randomly. CAUTION THE MARGIN OF ERROR DOESN T COVER ALL ERRORS The margin of error in a confidence interval covers only random sampling errors. Practical difficulties such as undercoverage and nonresponse are often more serious than random sampling error. The margin of error does not take such difficulties into account. Recall from Chapter 8 that national opinion polls often have response rates less than 50% and that even small changes in the wording of questions can strongly influence results. In such cases, the announced margin of error is probably unrealistically small. And of course there is no way to assign a meaningful margin of error to results from voluntary response or convenience samples, because there is no random selection. Look carefully at the details of a study before you trust a confidence interval.

8 400 CHAPTER 15 Thinking about Inference APPLY YOUR KNOWLEDGE 15.4 Confidence level and margin of error. Example 14.1 (page 360) described NHANES survey data on the body mass index (BMI) of 654 young women. The mean BMI in the sample was x = We treated these data as an SRS from a Normally distributed population with standard deviation σ = 7.5. c Jupiterimages/Age fotostock Give three confidence intervals for the mean BMI μ in this population, using 90%, 95%, and 99% confidence. What are the margins of error for 90%, 95%, and 99% confidence? How does increasing the confidence level change the margin of error of a confidence interval when the sample size and population standard deviation remain the same? 15.5 Sample size and margin of error. Example 14.1 (page 360) described NHANES survey data on the body mass index (BMI) of 654 young women. The mean BMI in the sample was x = We treated these data as an SRS from a Normally distributed population with standard deviation σ = 7.5. (c) Suppose that we had an SRS of just 100 young women. What would be the margin of error for 95% confidence? Find the margins of error for 95% confidence based on SRSs of 400 young women and 1600 young women. Compare the three margins of error. How does increasing the sample size change the margin of error of a confidence interval when the confidence level and population standard deviation remain the same? 15.6 Is your food safe? Do you feel confident or not confident that the food available at most grocery stores is safe to eat? When a Gallup Poll asked this question, 87% of the sample said they were confident. 3 Gallup announced the poll s margin of error for 95% confidence as ±3 percentage points. Which of the following sources of error are included in this margin of error? (c) Gallup dialed landline telephone numbers at random and so missed all people without landline phones, including people whose only phone is a cell phone. Some people whose numbers were chosen never answered the phone in several calls or answered but refused to participate in the poll. There is chance variation in the random selection of telephone numbers. How significance tests behave Significance tests are widely used in most areas of statistical work. New pharmaceutical products require significant evidence of effectiveness and safety. Courts inquire about statistical significance in hearing class action discrimination cases. Marketers want to know whether a new package design will significantly increase sales. Medical researchers want to know whether a new therapy performs significantly better. In all these uses, statistical significance is valued because it points to

9 How significance tests behave 401 an effect that is unlikely to occur simply by chance. Here are some points to keep in mind when you use or interpret significance tests. How small a P is convincing? The purpose of a test of significance is to describe the degree of evidence provided by the sample against the null hypothesis. The P -value does this. But how small a P -value is convincing evidence against the null hypothesis? This depends mainly on two circumstances: How plausible is H 0? If H 0 represents an assumption that the people you must convince have believed for years, strong evidence (small P ) will be needed to persuade them. What are the consequences of rejecting H 0? If rejecting H 0 in favor of H a means making an expensive changeover from one type of product packaging to another, you need strong evidence that the new packaging will boost sales. These criteria are a bit subjective. Different people will often insist on different levels of significance. Giving the P -value allows each of us to decide individually if the evidence is sufficiently strong. Users of statistics have often emphasized standard levels of significance such as 10%, 5%, and 1%. For example, courts have tended to accept 5% as a standard in discrimination cases. 4 This emphasis reflects the time when tables of critical values rather than software dominated statistical practice. The 5% level (α = 0.05) is particularly common. There is no sharp border between significant and not significant, only increasingly strong evidence as the P -value decreases. There is no practical distinction between the P -values and It makes no sense to treat P 0.05 as a universal rule for what is significant. CAUTION Significance depends on the alternative hypothesis You may have noticed that the P -value for a one-sided test is one-half the P -value for the two-sided test of the same null hypothesis based on the same data. The two-sided P -value combines two equal areas, one in each tail of a Normal curve. The one-sided P - value is just one of these areas, in the direction specified by the alternative hypothesis. It makes sense that the evidence against H 0 is stronger when the alternative is one-sided, because it is based on the data plus information about the direction of possible deviations from H 0. If you lack this added information, always use a two-sided alternative hypothesis. Significance depends on sample size A sample survey shows that significantly fewer students are heavy drinkers at colleges that ban alcohol on campus. Significantly fewer is not enough information to decide whether there is an important difference in drinking behavior at schools that ban alcohol. How important an effect is depends on the size of the effect as well as on its statistical significance. If the number of heavy drinkers is only 1% less at colleges that ban alcohol than at other colleges, this is not an important effect even if it is statistically significant. In fact, the sample survey found that 38% of students at colleges that ban alcohol CAUTION

10 402 CHAPTER 15 Thinking about Inference 85% 50% 99% 90% 40% % 88% 83% 48% 37% Should tests be banned? Significance tests don t tell us how large or how important an effect is. Research in psychology has emphasized tests, so much so that some think their weaknesses should ban them from use. The American Psychological Association asked a group of experts. They said: Use anything that sheds light on your study. Use more data analysis and confidence intervals. But: The task force does not support any action that could be interpreted as banning the use of null hypothesis significance testing or P -values in psychological research and publication. are heavy episodic drinkers compared with 48% at other colleges. 5 That difference is large enough to be important. (Of course, this observational study doesn t prove that an alcohol ban directly reduces drinking; it may be that colleges that ban alcohol attract more students who don t want to drink heavily.) Such examples remind us to always look at the size of an effect (like 38% versus 48%) as well as its significance. They also raise a question: can a tiny effect really be highly significant? Yes. The behavior of the z test statistic is typical. The statistic is z = x μ 0 σ/ n The numerator measures how far the sample mean deviates from the hypothesized mean μ 0. Larger values of the numerator give stronger evidence against H 0 : μ = μ 0. The denominator is the standard deviation of x. It measures how much random variation we expect. There is less variation when the number of observations n is large. So z gets larger (more significant) when the estimated effect x μ 0 gets larger or when the number of observations n gets larger. Significance depends both on the size of the effect we observe and on the size of the sample. Understanding this fact is essential to understanding significance tests. SAMPLE SIZE AFFECTS STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE Because large random samples have small chance variation, very small population effects can be highly significant if the sample is large. Because small random samples have a lot of chance variation, even large population effects can fail to be significant if the sample is small. Statistical significance does not tell us whether an effect is large enough to be important. That is, statistical significance is not the same thing as practical significance. Keep in mind that statistical significance means the sample showed an effect larger than would often occur just by chance. The extent of chance variation changes with the size of the sample, so the size of the sample does matter. Exercise 15.8 demonstrates in detail how increasing the sample size drives down the P - value. Here is another example. CAUTION EXAMPLE 15.4 It s significant. Or not. So what? We are testing the hypothesis of no correlation between two variables. With 1000 observations, an observed correlation of only r = 0.08 is significant evidence at the 1% level that the correlation in the population is not zero but positive. The small P -value does not mean there is a strong association, only that there is strong evidence of some association. The true population correlation is probably quite close to the observed sample value, r = We might well conclude that for practical purposes we can ignore the association between these variables, even though we are confident (at the 1% level) that the correlation is positive.

11 How significance tests behave 403 On the other hand, if we have only 10 observations, a correlation of r = 0.5 isnot significantly greater than zero even at the 5% level. Small samples vary so much that a large r is needed if we are to be confident that we aren t just seeing chance variation at work. So a small sample will often fall short of significance even if the true population correlation is quite large. Beware of multiple analyses Statistical significance ought to mean that you have found an effect that you were looking for. The reasoning behind statistical significance works well if you decide what effect you are seeking, design a study to search for it, and use a test of significance to weigh the evidence you get. In other settings, significance may have little meaning. EXAMPLE 15.5 Cell phones and brain cancer Might the radiation from cell phones be harmful to users? Many studies have found little or no connection between using cell phones and various illnesses. Here is part of a news account of one study: A hospital study that compared brain cancer patients and a similar group without brain cancer found no statistically significant association between cell phone use and a group of brain cancers known as gliomas. But when 20 types of glioma were considered separately an association was found between phone use and one rare form. Puzzlingly, however, this risk appeared to decrease rather than increase with greater mobile phone use. 6 Edward Bock/CORBIS Think for a moment. Suppose that the 20 null hypotheses (no association) for these 20 significance tests are all true. Then each test has a 5% chance of being significant at the 5% level. That s what α = 0.05 means: results this extreme occur 5% of the time just by chance when the null hypothesis is true. Because 5% is 1/20, we expect about 1 of 20 tests to give a significant result just by chance. That s what the study observed. Running one test and reaching the 5% level of significance is reasonably good evidence that you have found something. Running 20 tests and reaching that level only once is not. The caution about multiple analyses applies to confidence intervals as well. A single 95% confidence interval has probability 0.95 of capturing the true parameter each time you use it. The probability that all of 20 confidence intervals will capture their parameters is much less than 95%. If you think that multiple tests or intervals may have discovered an important effect, you need to gather new data to do inference about that specific effect. CAUTION APPLY YOUR KNOWLEDGE 15.7 Is it significant? In the absence of special preparation SAT mathematics (SATM) scores in recent years have varied Normally with mean μ = 518 and σ = 114. Fifty students go through a rigorous training program designed to raise their SATM scores by improving their mathematics skills. Either by hand or by using the

12 404 CHAPTER 15 Thinking about Inference APPLET APPLET P-Value of a Test of Significance applet, carry out a test of H 0 : μ = 518 H a : μ>518 (with σ = 114) in each of the following situations: The students average score is x = 544. Is this result significant at the 5% level? The average score is x = 545. Is this result significant at the 5% level? The difference between the two outcomes in and is of no importance. Beware attempts to treat α = 0.05 as sacred Detecting acid rain. Emissions of sulfur dioxide by industry set off chemical changes in the atmosphere that result in acid rain. The acidity of liquids is measured by ph on a scale of 0 to 14. Distilled water has ph 7.0, and lower ph values indicate acidity. Normal rain is somewhat acidic, so acid rain is sometimes defined as rainfall with a ph below 5.0. Suppose that ph measurements of rainfall on different days in a Canadian forest follow a Normal distribution with standard deviation σ = 0.5. A sample of n days finds that the mean ph is x = 4.8. Is this good evidence that the mean ph μ for all rainy days is less than 5.0? The answer depends on the size of the sample. Either by hand or using the P-Value of a Test of Significance applet, carry out three tests of H 0 : μ = 5.0 H a : μ<5.0 Use σ = 0.5 and x = 4.8 in all three tests. But use three different sample sizes, n = 5, n = 15, and n = 40. What are the P -values for the three tests? The P -value of the same result x = 4.8 gets smaller (more significant) as the sample size increases. For each test, sketch the Normal curve for the sampling distribution of x when H 0 is true. This curve has mean 5.0 and standard deviation 0.5/ n. Mark the observed x = 4.8 on each curve. (If you use the applet, you can just copy the curves displayed by the applet.) The same result x = 4.8 gets more extreme on the sampling distribution as the sample size increases Confidence intervals help. Give a 95% confidence interval for the mean ph μ for each sample size in the previous exercise. The intervals, unlike the P -values, give a clear picture of what mean ph values are plausible for each sample Searching for ESP. A researcher looking for evidence of extrasensory perception (ESP) tests 500 subjects. Four of these subjects do significantly better (P < 0.01) than random guessing. You can t conclude that these four people have ESP. Why not? What should the researcher now do to test whether any of these four subjects have ESP?

13 Planning studies: sample size for confidence intervals 405 Planning studies: sample size for confidence intervals A wise user of statistics never plans a sample or an experiment without at the same time planning the inference. The number of observations is a critical part of planning a study. Larger samples give smaller margins of error in confidence intervals and make significance tests better able to detect effects in the population. But taking observations costs both time and money. How many observations are enough? We will look at this question first for confidence intervals and then for tests. Planning a confidence interval is much simpler than planning a test. It is also more useful, because estimation is generally more informative than testing. The section on planning tests is therefore optional. You can arrange to have both high confidence and a small margin of error by taking enough observations. The margin of error of the z confidence interval for the mean of a Normally distributed population is m = z σ/ n. To obtain a desired margin of error m, put in the value of z for your desired confidence level, and solve for the sample size n. Here is the result. SAMPLE SIZE FOR DESIRED MARGIN OF ERROR The z confidence interval for the mean of a Normal population will have a specified margin of error m when the sample size is ( z ) σ 2 n = m Notice that it is the size of the sample that determines the margin of error. The size of the population does not influence the sample size we need. (This is true as long as the population is much larger than the sample.) CAUTION EXAMPLE 15.6 How many observations? Example 14.3 (page 366) reports a study of the healing rate of cuts in the skin of newts. We know that the population standard deviation is σ = 8 micrometers per hour. We want to estimate the mean healing rate μ for this species of newts within ±3 micrometers per hour with 90% confidence. How many newts must we measure? The desired margin of error is m = 3. For 90% confidence, Table C gives z = Therefore, ( z ) σ 2 ( ) n = = = 19.2 m 3 Because 19 newts will give a slightly larger margin of error than desired, and 20 newts a slightly smaller margin of error, we must measure 20 newts. Always round up to the next higher whole number when finding n.

14 406 CHAPTER 15 Thinking about Inference APPLY YOUR KNOWLEDGE Body mass index of young women. Example 14.1 (page 360) assumed that the body mass index (BMI) of all American young women follows a Normal distribution with standard deviation σ = 7.5. How large a sample would be needed to estimate the mean BMI μ in this population to within ±1 with 95% confidence? Number skills of young men. Suppose that scores of men aged 21 to 25 years on the quantitative part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test follow a Normal distribution with standard deviation σ = 60. You want to estimate the mean score within ±10 with 90% confidence. How large an SRS of scores must you choose? Planning studies: the power of a statistical test* How large a sample should we take when we plan to carry out a test of significance? We know that if our sample is too small, even large effects in the population will often fail to give statistically significant results. Here are the questions we must answer to decide how many observations we need: Significance level. How much protection do we want against getting a significant result from our sample when there really is no effect in the population? Effect size. How large an effect in the population is important in practice? Power. How confident do we want to be that our study will detect an effect of the size we think is important? The three boldface terms are statistical shorthand for three pieces of information. Power is a new idea. EXAMPLE 15.7 Sweetening colas: planning a study Let s illustrate typical answers to these questions in the example of testing a new cola for loss of sweetness in storage (Example 14.5, page 369). Ten trained tasters rated the sweetness on a 10-point scale before and after storage, so that we have each taster s judgment of loss of sweetness. From experience, we know that sweetness loss scores vary from taster to taster according to a Normal distribution with standard deviation about σ = 1. To see if the taste test gives reason to think that the cola does lose sweetness, we will test H 0 : μ = 0 H a : μ>0 Are 10 tasters enough, or should we use more? * Power calculations are important in planning studies, but this more advanced material is not needed to read the rest of the book.

15 Planning studies: the power of a statistical test 407 Significance level. Requiring significance at the 5% level is enough protection against declaring there is a loss in sweetness when in fact there is no change if we could look at the entire population. This means that when there is no change in sweetness in the population, 1 out of 20 samples of tasters will wrongly find a significant loss. Effect size. A mean sweetness loss of 0.8 point on the 10-point scale will be noticed by consumers and so is important in practice. Power. We want to be 90% confident that our test will detect a mean loss of 0.8 point in the population of all tasters. We agreed to use significance at the 5% level as our standard for detecting an effect. So we want probability at least 0.9 that a test at the α = 0.05 level will reject the null hypothesis H 0 : μ = 0 when the true population mean is μ = 0.8. The probability that the test successfully detects a sweetness loss of the specified size is the power of the test. You can think of tests with high power as being highly sensitive to deviations from the null hypothesis. In Example 15.7, we decided that we want power 90% when the truth about the population is that μ = 0.8. POWER The power of a test against a specific alternative is the probability that the test will reject H 0 at a chosen significance level α when the specified alternative value of the parameter is true. For most statistical tests, calculating power is a job for comprehensive statistical software. The z test is easier, but we will nonetheless skip the details. The two following examples illustrate two approaches: an applet that shows the meaning of power, and statistical software. EXAMPLE 15.8 Finding power: use an applet Finding the power of the z test is less challenging than most other power calculations because it requires only a Normal distribution probability calculation. The Power of a Test applet does this and illustrates the calculation with Normal curves. Enter the information from Example 15.7 into the applet: hypotheses, significance level α = 0.05, alternative value μ = 0.8, standard deviation σ = 1, and sample size n = 10. Click Update. The applet output appears in Figure The power of the test against the specific alternative μ = 0.8 is That is, the test will reject H 0 about 81% of the time when this alternative is true. So 10 observations are too few to give power 90%. APPLET The two Normal curves in Figure 15.2 show the sampling distribution of x under the null hypothesis μ = 0 (top) and also under the specific alternative μ = 0.8 (bottom). The curves have the same shape because σ does not change. The top curve is centered at μ = 0 and the bottom curve at μ = 0.8. The shaded region at the right of the top curve has area It marks off values of x that are statistically

16 408 CHAPTER 15 Thinking about Inference FIGURE 15.2 Output from the Power of a Test applet for Example 15.8, along with the information entered into the applet. The top curve shows the behavior of x when the null hypothesis is true (μ = 0). The bottom curve shows the distribution of x when μ = 0.8. H 0 : μ = 0 H a : μ > 0 H a : μ < 0 H a : μ = 0 n = 10 α = 0.05 σ = 1 alt μ = 0.8 α = Power = significant at the α = 0.05 level. The lower curve shows the probability of these same values when μ = 0.8. This area is the power, The applet will find the power for any given sample size. It s more helpful in practice to turn the process around and learn what sample size we need to achieve a given power. Statistical software will do this, but usually doesn t show the helpful Normal curves that are part of the applet s output. EXAMPLE 15.9 Finding power: use software We asked Minitab to find the number of observations needed for the one-sided z test to have power 0.9 against several specific alternatives at the 5% significance level when the population standard deviation is σ = 1. Here is the table that results: Sample Target Difference Size Power Actual Power In this output, Difference is the difference between the null hypothesis value μ = 0 and the alternative we want to detect. This is the effect size. The Sample Size column

17 Planning studies: the power of a statistical test 409 shows the smallest number of observations needed for power 0.9 against each effect size. We see again that our earlier sample of 10 tasters is not large enough to be 90% confident of detecting (at the 5% significance level) an effect of size 0.8. If we want power 90% against effect size 0.8, we need at least 14 tasters. The actual power with 14 tasters is Statistical software, unlike the applet, will do power calculations for most of the tests in this book. The table in Example 15.9 makes it clear that smaller effects require larger samples to reach 90% power. Here is an overview of influences on How large a sample do I need? If you insist on a smaller significance level (such as 1% rather than 5%), you will need a larger sample. A smaller significance level requires stronger evidence to reject the null hypothesis. If you insist on higher power (such as 99% rather than 90%), you will need a larger sample. Higher power gives a better chance of detecting an effect when it is really there. At any significance level and desired power, a two-sided alternative requires a larger sample than a one-sided alternative. At any significance level and desired power, detecting a small effect requires a larger sample than detecting a large effect. Planning a serious statistical study always requires an answer to the question How large a sample do I need? If you intend to test the hypothesis H 0 : μ = μ 0 about the mean μ of a population, you need at least a rough idea of the size of the population standard deviation σ and of how big a deviation μ μ 0 of the population mean from its hypothesized value you want to be able to detect. More elaborate settings, such as comparing the mean effects of several treatments, require more elaborate advance information. You can leave the details to experts, but you should understand the idea of power and the factors that influence how large a sample you need. To calculate the power of a test, we act as if we are interested in a fixed level of significance such as α = That s essential to do a power calculation, but remember that in practice we think in terms of P -values rather than a fixed level α. To effectively plan a statistical test we must find the power for several significance levels and for a range of sample sizes and effect sizes to get a full picture of how the test will behave. Fish, fishermen, and power Are the stocks of cod in the ocean off eastern Canada declining? Studies over many years failed to find significant evidence of a decline. These studies had low power that is, they might fail to find a decline even if one was present. When it became clear that the cod were vanishing, quotas on fishing ravaged the economy in parts of Canada. If the earlier studies had high power, they would likely have seen the decline. Quick action might have reduced the economic and environmental costs. Type I and Type II errors in significance tests We can assess the performance of a test by giving two probabilities: the significance level α and the power for an alternative that we want to be able to detect. The significance level of a test is the probability of reaching the wrong conclusion when the null hypothesis is true. The power for a specific alternative is the probability of reaching the right

18 410 CHAPTER 15 Thinking about Inference conclusion when that alternative is true. We can just as well describe the test by giving the probabilities of being wrong under both conditions. TYPE I AND TYPE II ERRORS If we reject H 0 when in fact H 0 is true, this is a Type I error. If we fail to reject H 0 when in fact H a is true, this is a Type II error. The significance level α of any fixed level test is the probability of a Type I error. The power of a test against any alternative is 1 minus the probability of a Type II error for that alternative. The possibilities are summed up in Figure If H 0 is true, our conclusion is correct if we fail to reject H 0 and is a Type I error if we reject H 0.IfH a is true, our conclusion is either correct or a Type II error. Only one error is possible at one time. Truth about the population H 0 true Ha true Conclusion based on sample Reject H 0 Fail to reject H 0 Type I error Correct conclusion Correct conclusion Type II error FIGURE 15.3 The two types of error in testing hypotheses. APPLET EXAMPLE Calculating error probabilities Because the probabilities of the two types of error are just a rewording of significance level and power, we can see from Figure 15.2 what the error probabilities are for the test in Example P (Type I error) = P (reject H 0 when in fact μ = 0) = significance level α = 0.05 P (Type II error) = P (fail to reject H 0 when in fact μ = 0.8) = 1 power = = The two Normal curves in Figure 15.2 are used to find the probabilities of a Type I error (top curve, μ = 0) and of a Type II error (bottom curve, μ = 0.8).

19 Planning studies: the power of a statistical test 411 APPLY YOUR KNOWLEDGE What is power? You manufacture and sell a liquid product whose electrical conductivity is supposed to be 5. You plan to make 6 measurements of the conductivity of each lot of product. You know that the standard deviation of your measurements is σ = 0.2. If the product meets specifications, the mean of many measurements will be 5. You will therefore test H 0 : μ = 5 H a : μ 5 If the true conductivity is 5.1, the liquid is not suitable for its intended use. You learn that the power of your test at the 5% significance level against the alternative μ = 5.1 is Explain in simple language what power = 0.23 means. Explain why the test you plan will not adequately protect you against selling a liquid with conductivity Thinking about power. Answer these questions in the setting of the previous exercise about measuring the conductivity of a liquid. (c) You could get higher power against the same alternative with the same α by changing the number of measurements you make. Should you make more measurements or fewer to increase power? If you decide to use α = 0.10 in place of α = 0.05, with no other changes in the test, will the power increase or decrease? If you shift your interest to the alternative μ = 5.2 with no other changes, will the power increase or decrease? How power behaves. In the setting of Exercise 15.13, use the Power of a Test applet to find the power in each of the following circumstances. Be sure to set the applet to the two-sided alternative. Standard deviation σ = 0.2, significance level α = 0.05, alternative μ = 5.1, and sample sizes n = 6, n = 12, and n = 24. How does increasing the sample size with no other changes affect the power? Standard deviation σ = 0.2, significance level α = 0.05, sample size n = 6, and alternatives μ = 5.1, μ = 5.2, and μ = 5.3. How do alternatives more distant from the hypothesis (larger effect sizes) affect the power? (c) Standard deviation σ = 0.2, sample size n = 6, alternative μ = 5.1, and significance levels α = 0.05, α = 0.10, and α = (Click the + and buttons to change α.) How does increasing the desired significance level affect the power? How power behaves. Another approach to improving the unsatisfactory power of the test in Exercise is to improve the measurement process. That is, use a measurement process that is less variable. Use the Power of a Test applet to find the power of the test in Exercise in each of these circumstances: significance level α = 0.05, alternative μ = 5.1, sample size n = 6, and σ = 0.2, σ = 0.1, and APPLET APPLET

20 412 CHAPTER 15 Thinking about Inference σ = How does decreasing the variability of the population of measurements affect the power? Two types of error. Your company markets a computerized medical diagnostic program used to evaluate thousands of people. The program scans the results of routine medical tests (pulse rate, blood tests, etc.) and refers the case to a doctor if there is evidence of a medical problem. The program makes a decision about each person. What are the two hypotheses and the two types of error that the program can make? Describe the two types of error in terms of false positive and false negative test results. The program can be adjusted to decrease one error probability, at the cost of an increase in the other error probability. Which error probability would you choose to make smaller, and why? (This is a matter of judgment. There is no single correct answer.) C H A P T E R 1 5 S U M M A R Y A specific confidence interval or test is correct only under specific conditions. The most important conditions concern the method used to produce the data. Other factors such as the shape of the population distribution may also be important. Whenever you use statistical inference, you are acting as if your data are a random sample or come from a randomized comparative experiment. Always do data analysis before inference to detect outliers or other problems that would make inference untrustworthy. Other things being equal, the margin of error of a confidence interval gets smaller as the confidence level C decreases, the population standard deviation σ decreases, the sample size n increases. The margin of error in a confidence interval accounts for only the chance variation due to random sampling. In practice, errors due to nonresponse or undercoverage are often more serious. There is no universal rule for how small a P -value in a test of significance is convincing evidence against the null hypothesis. Beware of placing too much weight on traditional significance levels such as α = Very small effects can be highly significant (small P) when a test is based on a large sample. A statistically significant effect need not be practically important. Plot the data to display the effect you are seeking, and use confidence intervals to estimate the actual values of parameters. On the other hand, lack of significance does not imply that H 0 is true. Even a large effect can fail to be significant when a test is based on a small sample.

21 Check Your Skills 413 Many tests run at once will probably produce some significant results by chance alone, even if all the null hypotheses are true. When you plan a statistical study, plan the inference as well. In particular, ask what sample size you need for successful inference. The z confidence interval for a Normal mean has specified margin of error m when the sample size is ( z ) σ 2 n = m Here z is the critical value for the desired level of confidence. Always round n up when you use this formula. The power of a significance test measures its ability to detect an alternative hypothesis. The power against a specific alternative is the probability that the test will reject H 0 at a particular level α when that alternative is true. Increasing the size of the sample increases the power of a significance test. You can use statistical software to find the sample size needed to achieve a desired power. C H E C K Y O U R S K I L L S The most important condition for sound conclusions from statistical inference is usually that the data can be thought of as a random sample from the population of interest. that the population distribution is exactly Normal. (c) that the data contain no outliers The coach of a college men s basketball team records the resting heart rates of the 15 team members. You should not trust a confidence interval for the mean resting heart rate of all male students at this college based on these data because with only 15 observations, the margin of error will be large. heart rates may not have a Normal distribution. (c) the members of the basketball team can t be considered a random sample of all students You turn your Web browser to the online Harris Interactive poll. Based on 6748 responses, the poll reports that 16% of U.S. adults sometimes use the Internet to make telephone calls. 7 You should refuse to calculate a 95% confidence interval based on this sample because the poll was taken a week ago. inference from a voluntary response sample can t be trusted. (c) the sample is too large.

22 414 CHAPTER 15 Thinking about Inference CORBIS/Age fotostock Many sample surveys use well-designed random samples but half or more of the original sample can t be contacted or refuse to take part. Any errors due to this nonresponse have no effect on the accuracy of confidence intervals. are included in the announced margin of error. (c) are in addition to the random variation accounted for by the announced margin of error A writer in a medical journal says: An uncontrolled experiment in 17 women found a significantly improved mean clinical symptom score after treatment. Methodologic flaws make it difficult to interpret the results of this study. The writer is skeptical about the significant improvement because there is no control group, so the improvement might be due to the placebo effect or to the fact that many medical conditions improve over time. the P -value given was P = 0.03, which is too large to be convincing. (c) the response variable might not have an exactly Normal distribution in the population Vigorous exercise helps people live several years longer (on the average). Whether mild activities like slow walking extend life is not clear. Suppose that the added life expectancy from regular slow walking is just 2 months. A statistical test is more likely to find a significant increase in mean life if it is based on a very large random sample. it is based on a very small random sample. (c) The size of the sample doesn t have any effect on the significance of the test A laboratory scale is known to have a standard deviation of σ = gram in repeated weighings. Scale readings in repeated weighings are Normally distributed, with mean equal to the true weight of the specimen. How many times must you weigh a specimen on this scale in order to get a margin of error no larger than ± with 95% confidence? 4 times 15 times (c) 16 times A medical experiment compared the herb echinacea with a placebo for preventing colds. One response variable was volume of nasal secretions (if you have a cold, you blow your nose a lot). Take the average volume of nasal secretions in people without colds to be μ = 1. An increase to μ = 3 indicates a cold. The significance level of a test of H 0 : μ = 1 versus H a : μ>1is defined as (c) the probability that the test rejects H 0 when μ = 1 is true. the probability that the test rejects H 0 when μ = 3 is true. the probability that the test fails to reject H 0 when μ = 3 is true (Optional) The power of the test in the previous exercise against the specific alternative μ = 3 is defined as the probability that the test rejects H 0 when μ = 1 is true.

23 Chapter 15 Exercises 415 (c) the probability that the test rejects H 0 when μ = 3 is true. the probability that the test fails to reject H 0 when μ = 3 is true (Optional) The power of a test is important in practice because power (c) describes how well the test performs when the null hypothesis is actually true. describes how sensitive the test is to violations of conditions such as Normal population distribution. describes how well the test performs when the null hypothesis is actually not true. C H A P T E R 1 5 E X E R C I S E S Hotel managers. In Exercise (page 387) you carried out a test of significance based on data from 148 general managers of three-star and four-star hotels. Before you trust your results, you would like more information about the data. What facts would you most like to know? Color blindness in Africa. An anthropologist claims that color blindness is less common in societies that live by hunting and gathering than in settled agricultural societies. He tests a number of adults in two populations in Africa, one of each type. The proportion of color-blind people is significantly lower (P < 0.05) in the hunter-gatherer population. What additional information would you want to help you decide whether you believe the anthropologist s claim? Hotel managers. In Exercise (page 387) you carried out a test of significance based on the BSRI femininity scores of 148 male general managers of three-star and four-star hotels. You now realize that a confidence interval for the mean score of male hotel managers would be more informative than a test. You would be satisfied to estimate the mean to within ±0.2 with 99% confidence. The standard deviation of the scores is probably close to the value σ = 0.78 for the adult male population. How large an SRS of hotel managers do you need? Sampling at the mall. A market researcher chooses at random from women entering a large suburban shopping mall. One outcome of the study is a 95% confidence interval for the mean of the highest price you would pay for a pair of casual shoes. Explain why this confidence interval does not give useful information about the population of all women. Explain why it may give useful information about the population of women who shop at large suburban malls Pulling wood apart. You want to estimate the mean load needed to pull apart the pieces of wood in Exercise (page 389) to within ±1000 pounds with 95% confidence. How large a sample is needed? Sensitive questions. The National AIDS Behavioral Surveys found that 170 individuals in its random sample of 2673 adult heterosexuals said they had multiple sexual partners in the past year. That s 6.36% of the sample. Why is this estimate likely to be biased? Does the margin of error of a 95% confidence interval for the proportion of all adults with multiple partners allow for this bias?

24 416 CHAPTER 15 Thinking about Inference College degrees. At the Census Bureau Web site you can find the percent of adults in each state who have at least a bachelor s degree. It makes no sense to find x for these data and use it to get a confidence interval for the mean percent μ in all 50 states. Why not? An outlier strikes. You have data on an SRS of recent graduates from your college that shows how long each student took to complete a bachelor s degree. The data contain one high outlier. Will this outlier have a greater effect on a confidence interval for mean completion time if your sample is small or large? Why? Can we trust this interval? Here are data on the percent change in the total mass (in tons) of wildlife in several West African game preserves in the years 1971 to 1999: Software gives the 95% confidence interval for the mean annual percent change as 6.66% to 2.55%. There are several reasons why we might not trust this interval. Examine the distribution of the data. What feature of the distribution throws doubt on the validity of statistical inference? Plot the percents against year. What trend do you see in this time series? Explain why a trend over time casts doubt on the condition that years 1971 to 1999 can be treated as an SRS from a larger population of years When to use pacemakers. A medical panel prepared guidelines for when cardiac pacemakers should be implanted in patients with heart problems. The panel reviewed a large number of medical studies to judge the strength of the evidence supporting each recommendation. For each recommendation, they ranked the evidence as level A (strongest), B, or C (weakest). Here, in scrambled order, are the panel s descriptions of the three levels of evidence. 9 Which is A, which B, and which C? Explain your ranking. Layne Kennedy/CORBIS Evidence was ranked as level when data were derived from a limited number of trials involving comparatively small numbers of patients or from well-designed data analysis of nonrandomized studies or observational data registries. Evidence was ranked as level if the data were derived from multiple randomized clinical trials involving a large number of individuals. Evidence was ranked as level when consensus of expert opinion was the primary source of recommendation What is significance good for? Which of the following questions does a test of significance answer? Briefly explain your replies. Is the sample or experiment properly designed?