ERIC Number: EJ851655
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2004-Jul
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1069-1898
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
The Counter-Intuitive Non-Informative Prior for the Bernoulli Family
Zhu, Mu; Lu, Arthur Y.
Journal of Statistics Education, v12 n2 Jul 2004
In Bayesian statistics, the choice of the prior distribution is often controversial. Different rules for selecting priors have been suggested in the literature, which, sometimes, produce priors that are difficult for the students to understand intuitively. In this article, we use a simple heuristic to illustrate to the students the rather counter-intuitive fact that flat priors are not necessarily non-informative; and non-informative priors are not necessarily flat. (Contains 1 figure.)
Descriptors: Bayesian Statistics, Maximum Likelihood Statistics, Probability, Statistical Distributions, Statistics, Statistical Analysis
American Statistical Association. 732 North Washington Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. Tel: 703-684-1221; Tel: 888-231-3473; Fax: 703-684-2037; e-mail: asainfo@amstat.org; Web site: http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A