For example, the most commonly used measure of location is the mean. The population, or true, mean is the sum of all the members of the given population divided by the number of members in the population. As it is typically impractical to measure every member of the population, a random sample is drawn from the population. The sample mean is calculated by summing the values in the sample and dividing by the number of values in the sample. This sample mean is then used as the point estimate of the population mean.
Interval estimates expand on point estimates by incorporating the uncertainty of the point estimate.
In the example for the mean above, different samples from the same population will generate different values for the sample mean. Hypothesis Tests Hypothesis tests also address the uncertainty of the sample estimate. However, instead of providing an interval, a hypothesis test attempts to refute a specific claim about a population parameter based on the sample data. However, to accept a hypothesis does not mean that it is true, only that we do not have evidence to believe otherwise. A statement of the null hypothesis, e.g., two population means are equal.