In: Statistics and Probability
A student researcher compares the heights of American students and non-American students from the student body of a certain college in order to estimate the difference in their mean heights. A random sample of 17 American students had a mean height of 70 inches with a standard deviation of 2.87 inches. A random sample of 12 non-American students had a mean height of 65.1 inches with a standard deviation of 2.68 inches. Determine the 90% confidence interval for the true mean difference between the mean height of the American students and the mean height of the non-American students. Assume that the population variances are equal and that the two populations are normally distributed. Step 1 of 3 : Find the point estimate that should be used in constructing the confidence interval.