Author Archives: David Diez

About David Diez

David is a co-founder of OpenIntro, a nonprofit, with leading educators who develop free materials for introductory statistics courses, including open-source textbooks, software labs, videos, and more.

Don’t Forget the Conditions for the Bootstrap!

David Diez, OpenIntro

The percentile bootstrap approach has made inroads to introductory statistics courses, sometimes with the incorrect declaration that it can be used without checking any conditions. Unfortunately, the percentile bootstrap performs worse than methods based on the t-distribution for small samples of numerical data. I would wager that the large majority of statisticians proselytize the opposite to be true, and I think this misplaced faith has created a small epidemic.

[pullquote]The percentile bootstrap is nothing new, but its weaknesses remain largely unknown in the community. I find myself wrestling with several considerations whenever I think about this topic.[/pullquote]

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