Inference conditions
As was hinted before, Table 6 of the report provides statistics, that is, calculations made from the sample of 51,927 people. What you would like though, is insight into the population parameters.
You answer the question, "What proportion of people in your sample reported being atheists?" with a statistic; while the question "What proportion of people on earth would report being atheists" is answered with an estimate of the parameter.
The inferential tools for estimating population proportion are analogous to those used for means in the previous lab: the confidence interval and the hypothesis test.
This exercise is part of the course
Data Analysis and Statistical Inference
Exercise instructions
- Take some time to write out the conditions for inference to construct a 95% confidence interval for the proportion of atheists in the United States in 2012.
- Are you confident all conditions are met? If you're done with that just click 'Sumbit Answer'.
Hands-on interactive exercise
Have a go at this exercise by completing this sample code.
# Just click 'Submit Answer'!