TABLE 8-5
A sample of salary offers (in thousands of dollars) given to management majors is: 48, 51, 46, 52, 47, 48, 47, 50, 51, and 59. Using this data to obtain a 95% confidence interval resulted in an interval from 47.19 to 52.61.
-Referring to Table 8-5, the confidence interval obtained is valid only if the distribution of the population of salary offers is normal.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The validity of a confidence interval depends on the assumption of the underlying population distribution. In this case, since the sample size is large (n=10), according to the Central Limit Theorem, the distribution of the sample mean would be approximately normal even if the population distribution is not normal, as long as the sample size is sufficiently large. Therefore, the assumption of normality for the population distribution is not required for the validity of the confidence interval. However, if the sample size were smaller, it would be important to assess the normality of the population distribution to ensure the validity of the confidence interval.

TABLE 8-5 A Sample of Salary Offers (In Thousands of Dollars) Given