In
statistics, a
confidence interval (
CI) is a type of
interval estimate of a
population parameter. It is an observed interval (i.e., it is calculated from the observations), in principle different from
sample to sample, that frequently includes the value of an unobservable parameter of interest if the experiment is repeated. How frequently the observed interval contains the parameter is determined by the
confidence level or
confidence coefficient. More specifically, the meaning of the term "confidence level" is that, if CI are constructed across many separate data analyses of
replicated (and possibly different) experiments, the proportion of such intervals that contain the true value of the parameter will match the given confidence level. Whereas two-sided confidence limits form a confidence interval, their one-sided counterparts are referred to as lower or upper
confidence bounds.