Confidence Level

Learn about confidence levels and how they can impact your survey analysis

A Confidence Level is the statistical likelihood that a random variable lies within the confidence interval of an estimate.

The confidence level is represented by a percentage and this percentage indicates how confident you can be that a survey's result will capture the true opinions or attitudes of the population.

For example, let's say you were surveying a representative sample group made up of 1000 respondents about their attitude towards banning sugar in schools. A 95% confidence level would mean if you were to repeat the same survey, over and over again, each time with a different sample of 1,000 respondents, you can expect to experience the same survey results 95% of the time. 

Expert Tip! The most commonly used and accepted confidence level is 95% and is the default setting for every survey.

Read on to understand a survey's confidence intervals .