Guide for Determining the Confidence Interval Using Excel

1. Click in an empty cell.

2. Go to the Inset menu and select Function

3. Scroll through the functions and select STDEV.

4. Highlight the cells containing the data to which the standard deviation is to apply
(normally duplicate or triplicate results).
5. Click OK.
6. Click in another empty cell.
7. Go to the Insert menu and select Function.

8. Scroll through the functions and select CONFIDENCE.

The following dialogue box will appear.

5. In the box labeled Alpha, insert the Alpha level you wish to use in your analysis
(Use: .05 for a 95% confidence interval).
6. Click in the box labelled Standard_dev and type in the value computed in the
STDEV function performed above.
7. In the box labelled Size, insert the number of data points in the sample (for a
triplicate test, enter 3).
8. Click OK, and the confidence interval will be computed.
9. Add and subtract the confidence interval value from the mean found above to find
the confidence interval range.

Tim Sandle
13th August 2008