Inference about

Population Variances
Marcelo Maia

2016
 Examples
• Mean is usually more common to think about
• Product quality = low variability about the
target mean
• Potency of drugs: excessive potency or
underdose is harmful
• Risk investment
 Estimation and test
for population variance

A statistic is said to be an unbiased estimate of

a given parameter when the mean of the
sampling distribution of that statistic can be
shown to be equal to the parameter being
estimated
Properties of Chi-square
 Non-normality and variance
inference
• Unlike inference of mean, which accepted
t distribution–based procedures to be used to make inferences
about µ even when the normality condition does not hold,
• because for moderate to large sample sizes the Central Limit
Theorem provides that the sampling distribution of the sample
mean is approximately normal.
• The same does not hold for the chi-square–based procedures for
making inferences about σ
Simulation
Estimation and Tests for Comparing Two
Population Variances
• A major application of a test for the equality of two population variances
• evaluating the validity of the equal variance condition (that is, σ21 = σ22) for
a two-sample t test.
• Assumption:
• two population distributions both have normal distributions
• Samples have been independently drawn
Impact of non-normality
• Hartley’s test
– Simple computation
– Assumption:
• Population normally distributed
• Equal sample size

• Brown-Forsythe-Levene (BFL) test

– Complex computation
– Does not restrict: neither distribution nor sample sizes
BFL Test: Alternative to
non-normality