Let’s Estimate: Six Valuable Things That Confidence Intervals Tell Us

In any field, estimation is usually the most informative approach to research, and better than using statistical significance testing. Estimation gives us quantitative answers to our questions, in the form of confidence intervals (CIs), which are easy to understand, but challenging to understand fully. I will use pictures and simulations to discuss six ways to interpret CIs, or six types of valuable information they give us. I will give examples of the practical use of CIs in a number of situations, and will also introduce meta-analysis, which is the extension of estimation to more than one study. I will use ESCI (Exploratory Software for Confidence Intervals), to illustrate concepts, and to calculate and display confidence intervals.