Statistics for applied researchers: Bootstrap to the rescue

Abstract

© 2015, Philippine Statistical Association, Inc. All rights reserved. Availability of latest, fast and affordable computing resources has empowered the statisticians tremendously. This has also given the applied researchers a unique edge to extend the frontier of their knowledge-base by taking advantage of sophisticated computational statistical tools where theoretical derivations of complex sampling distributions are often not required or can be bypassed. 'Bootstrap method' is one such tool which is being used widely in solving real-life problems that involve statistical inferences. This article is designed to present bootstrap in simple terms for the applied researchers with useful examples and show how it can go a long way in settling contentious issues with reasonably convincing results.