In general, we assume that we know everything about an situation we are observing except for the value of a certain
numerical parameter. We use the data to get information about that parameter. The most common case is that of the
location parameter of a
normal distribution which we estimate by the
arithmetic mean of the observations.
When we just quote the estimated value, we are using [point estimation]?. More often, we wish to find an interval with a high probability of covering the value of the parameter. This is a [confidence interval]?, a specific form of an [interval estimation]?.
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