Course Objectives

Important University Policies

Class Time and Place

Prerequisites

Blackboard

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This page is the general description of the course and suggested expectations for both the student and the expectations of the teacher.

Accuracy and Precision

Formated version of this page for printing

Two concepts that are often confused are accuracy and precision.  The following graphs illustrate the difference between these ideas.

• Accuracy of a sample is how close the sample mean (xbar) is to the population mean (mu).
• Precision of a sample is how well the confidence one may have in the estimated sample mean.

Figure 1 - The sample estimate is both accurate and precise.

Figure 2 - The sample estimate is accurate but less precise.

Figure 3  - The sample estimate is biased but just as precise as figure 1.

Also See:

Chapter 1 - Introduction pages 1-6 in:

Zar, J. H. 1996. Biostatistical Analysis. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 718 pp.