In statistics, point estimation involves the use of sample data to calculate a single value (known as a statistic) which is to serve as a "best guess" or "best estimate" of an unknown (fixed or random) population parameter.
More formally, it is the application of a point estimator to the data.
In general, point estimation should be contrasted with interval estimation: such interval estimates are typically either confidence intervals in the case of frequentist inference, or credible intervals in the case of Bayesian inference.
Read more about Point Estimation: Point Estimators, Bayesian Point-estimation, Properties of Point Estimates
Famous quotes containing the words point and/or estimation:
“The lifelong process of caregiving, is the ultimate link between caregivers of all ages. You and I are not just in a phase we will outgrow. This is life—birth, death, and everything in between.... The care continuum is the cycle of life turning full circle in each of our lives. And what we learn when we spoon-feed our babies will echo in our ears as we feed our parents. The point is not to be done. The point is to be ready to do again.”
—Paula C. Lowe (20th century)
“No man ever stood lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)