[R] ?Accuracy of prop.test

Jack Sofsky jsofsky at comcast.net
Sun Jul 17 18:27:25 CEST 2011


I have just joined this list (and just started using R), so please 
excuse any etiquette breaches as I do not yet have a feel for how the 
list operates.

I am in the process of teaching myself statistics using R as my utility 
as my ultimate goals cannot be satisfied by Excel or any of the plug-ins 
I could afford.

I am currently looking at chap12 page 552 of Weiss's Introductory 
Statistics 9th edition.  Example 12.5 demonstrates using "Technology" to 
obtain a One-Proportion z-Interval.

n=202
x=1010
confidence interval = .95.

Answer given by Minitab
0.175331, .224669
Answer given by TI-83/84
.17533, .22467
Answer given by Weiss's Excel Plug-in
0.175 < p < 0.225

Here is what I got with R
prop.test(202,1010,correct="FALSE")

     1-sample proportions test without continuity correction

data:  202 out of 1010, null probability 0.5
X-squared = 363.6, df = 1, p-value < 2.2e-16
alternative hypothesis: true p is not equal to 0.5
95 percent confidence interval:
  0.1764885 0.2257849
sample estimates:
   p
0.2

I'm also getting slight differences in the answers for exercises and 
find this disconcerting.

Why are these differences present  (or am I doing something wrong)?

Jack



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