Demo guide: the margin of error, visualized in Excel

You’ve likely heard on the news that a certain poll has a “margin of error of +/- 3%.” What does that mean, really? What is a margin of error, and why is it often reported as +/- 2 or 3 percent?

Let’s use Excel to visualize this phenomenon. There is a decent amount of inferential statistics in this demo, so it’s best if you have studied concepts before such as the standard deviation and the critical value. If you’d like to learn more about the field, check out Sarah Boslaugh’s Statistics in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition.

You can follow along with the exercise file I’ve linked to below.  

Download the exercise file here.

You can follow along with the video, and download the PDF demo guide for step-by-step instructions.

Download the demo guide here.

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