Putting Research in Context: Understanding Confidence Intervals from One or More Studies

Abstract

To support wider use and higher quality interpretation of confidence intervals (CIs) in psychology. We discuss the meaning and interpretation of CIs in single studies, and illustrate the value of CIs when reviewing and integrating research findings across studies. We demonstrate how to find CIs from summary statistics and published data in some simple situations. We provide the ESCI graphical software, which runs under Microsoft Excel, to assist with calculating and plotting CIs. (www.latrobe.edu.au/psy/esci) The wider use of CIs in psychology should support quality research communication and integrated interpretation of findings in context.