Frequentist statistics

Frequentist inference is a type of statistical inference that draws conclusions from sample data by emphasizing the frequency or proportion of the data. An alternative name is frequentist statistics. This is the inference framework in which the well-established methodologies of statistical hypothesis testing and confidence intervals are based. Other than frequentistic inference, the main alternative approach to statistical inference is Bayesian inference, while another is fiducial inference.

While "Bayesian inference" is sometimes held to include the approach to inference leading to optimal decisions, a more restricted view is taken here for simplicity.

Frequentist inference does not formally take into consideration the expectation of other probability distributions which may influence the distribution under study.

Frequentist inference has been associated with the frequentist interpretation of probability, specifically that any given experiment can be considered as one of an infinite sequence of possible repetitions of the same experiment, each capable of producing statistically independent results. In this view, the frequentist inference approach to drawing conclusions from data is effectively to require that the correct conclusion should be drawn with a given (high) probability, among this notional set of repetitions. However, exactly the same procedures can be developed under a subtly different formulation. This is one where a pre-experiment point of view is taken. It can be argued that the design of an experiment should include, before undertaking the experiment, decisions about exactly what steps will be taken to reach a conclusion from the data yet to be obtained. These steps can be specified by the scientist so that there is a high probability of reaching a correct decision where, in this case, the probability relates to a yet to occur set of random events and hence does not rely on the frequency interpretation of probability. This formulation has been discussed by Neyman, among others.

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