Estimating_Parameters
back to Statistical Theory -- Applied Statistics
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 have a point estimate. 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 estimate.