What's your understanding of a standard error? [General Statistics]
Hi all,
I can relate to quite a few more or less abstract quantities or objects that we encounter in BE, e.g. critical t-value, or a treatment effect or a density function or a model matrix or....
One of the things I cannot easily relate to (as in: interpret or graphically visualize inside my little head) is the standard error.
Example: the SE is a quantity that is factored onto the cricial t-value to determine the width of a confidence interval, given a set of observations. Yeah right, professor!).
Another example: "The standard error (SE) is the standard deviation of the sampling distribution of a statistic" (from Wikipedia). Yeah right, professor!
So, a question to you experts: How do you interpret the SE (of a mean or of something else)?
I am not asking about a reference to Wikipedia or a stats text which defines it or shows how to calculate it. I've read those
. I am solely asking about an interpretation of SE's for dummies.
Thanks if anyone can help.
I can relate to quite a few more or less abstract quantities or objects that we encounter in BE, e.g. critical t-value, or a treatment effect or a density function or a model matrix or....
One of the things I cannot easily relate to (as in: interpret or graphically visualize inside my little head) is the standard error.
Example: the SE is a quantity that is factored onto the cricial t-value to determine the width of a confidence interval, given a set of observations. Yeah right, professor!).
Another example: "The standard error (SE) is the standard deviation of the sampling distribution of a statistic" (from Wikipedia). Yeah right, professor!
So, a question to you experts: How do you interpret the SE (of a mean or of something else)?
I am not asking about a reference to Wikipedia or a stats text which defines it or shows how to calculate it. I've read those

Thanks if anyone can help.
—
Pass or fail!
ElMaestro
Pass or fail!
ElMaestro
Complete thread:
- What's your understanding of a standard error?ElMaestro 2016-12-26 19:05 [General Statistics]
- What's your understanding of a standard error? DavidManteigas 2016-12-27 10:41
- What's your understanding of a standard error? nobody 2016-12-27 10:42
- Standard error for Dummies d_labes 2016-12-27 11:46
- Standard error for Dummies Ben 2016-12-29 14:32
- What's your understanding of a standard error? zizou 2016-12-27 19:33