Confidence Interval for the Difference between Two Binomial

amonitas3zeb

amonitas3zeb

Answered question

2022-03-26

Confidence Interval for the Difference between Two Binomial Proportions
I have this stats problem where I am to create a 98% confidence interval for the difference between proportions. X1=21,n1=90 and X2=39,n2=70.
I did a 2propzinterval test and my confidence interval came out as (0.497,0.151).
The question is: A marketing manager claims that the proportion of customers who purchased pretzels did not change after the app campaign. Does the confidence interval contradict this claim?
How do I know if this confidence interval contradicts the claim? Thank you for your help!

Answer & Explanation

Drahthaare89c

Drahthaare89c

Beginner2022-03-27Added 19 answers

Not familiar with the intended technique. But I think the following method is good and it works without the Gaussian approximation. Assume x1B(n1,p1) and x2B(n2,p2) have the same probability p1=p2=p and are independent. Then we have
x1+x2B(n1+n2,p),
and therefore the most likely value for p is ,p=x1+x2n1+n2=38. Knowing p makes the hypothesis test much easier. If the n1=90 cases are randomly selected from n1+n2=160, the probability to have x1 successful cases is given by
p(x1|x1+x2=60)=60x110090-x116090.
Numerics shows that the 0.9864 confidence range is x1[27,41]. The biggest confidence range that does not includes ,x1=21, is ,x1[22,46], which has a confidence level of 0.999965. Thus the chance for x1(=21)[22,46] is only 3.5×105 if p1=p2. This gives a statistically strong evidence for p1p2.

cineworld93uowb

cineworld93uowb

Beginner2022-03-28Added 16 answers

The quick answer is that your 98% confidence interval (0.497,0.151) does not contain 0 (no change). So you would reject the null hypothesis H0:p1p2=0 against the alternative hypothesis Ha:p1p20 at the 2% significance level.
Minitab statistical software does the test directly and also gives a confidence interval (at the requested confidence level), using a normal approximation, as follows:
SampleXNSample p121900.233333239700.557143
Difference =p(1)p(2)
Estimate for difference: 0.323810
98% CI for difference: (0.496531,0.151088)
Test for difference =0(vs0):
Z=4.36 PValue=0.000
The Minitab 98% CI agrees with yours, so I assume you did your computations correctly.SNKThe critical value for a test at the 2% level is 2.236, that is you would reject because |Z|=4.36>2.236. [The numbers ±2.236 cut 1% from the upper and lower tails (respectively) of the standard normal distribution.] You can also use the P-value <0.0005 to reject H0 at the 2% level because the P-value is less than 2%.
In summary, you have three equivalent ways to reject H0: (a) The (2-sided) 98% CI does not include 0, (b) |Z|>2.236, and (c) the P-value is less than 2%.
Notes: (1) My guess is that you were expected to use the same method implemented in the Minitab procedure. Formulas for that method are shown in many elementary texts.
(2) However, uses exact binomial probabilities. This is another correct approach (+1). (I have not checked the computations in that answer.)

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