Confidence level
The confidence level is a number that acts as a threshold for a "surprising" P-value and as a cut-off for determining when two groups have a difference in proportions.
The P-value is a numeric probability of seeing the difference in proportions under the assumption there isn't a real difference in the proportions between the two groups. With a confidence level of 95%, any P-value less than or equal to 0.05 is considered surprising. A small P-value means it is unlikely to occur if the variations between group proportions was random. If there is a difference because of random chance it would be surprising enough to believe it is wrong. So, it can be concluded there is a true difference in the proportions between two groups.
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In an example where the confidence level is set to 95%, that means any P-value that is less than 0.05 (1 - 0.95 = 0.05), is considered "surprising", and we would reject the assumption there is no difference between proportions and instead say there is an actual difference. |
The confidence level sets what is the acceptable probability of getting a false positive, when there is no real difference between groups.
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Using the same example where the confidence level is 95%, it indicates we can accepting false positives 5% of the time in a situation where there is no real difference between two group proportion. |
- By default, the confidence level is set at 95%, but you can adjust the confidence level based on your needs.
- Using a lower confidence level may result in more differences being identified, but this can lead to more false positives among the differences that are identified.