Title: Importance of Confidence Intervals | Insights Association
Headings: Importance of Confidence Intervals
Importance of Confidence Intervals
Market researchers: we need to do more.

Content: Importance of Confidence Intervals | Insights Association
Importance of Confidence Intervals
November 12, 2015
Market research is about reducing risk. Good research provides information and understanding which allows us to more effectively value our alternatives and make better decisions. When we report results without confidence intervals we are not reducing risk; in fact we may be inadvertently increasing it. Confidence intervals are a concept that everyone learns in their first stats course but I suspect few truly appreciate their importance. Confidence intervals are about risk. They consider the sample size and the potential variation in the population and give us an estimate of the range in which the real answer lies. Confidence intervals are a bright yellow caution sign telling you to take that sample result with a grain of salt because you can’t be more specific than this range. Think about the implications of ignoring confidence intervals for a moment. If you only report a number but you can’t be more specific than a range you are over-representing the precision of your results?