In the context of hypothesis testing in sociology, what is a confidence interval primarily used for?

In sociology, a confidence interval is used to estimate a range of values that likely contains the true population parameter, like an average or proportion. When researchers collect data from a sample, they want to make inferences about the larger group, or population, without measuring everyone. For example, if a study finds that 60% of a sample supports a new policy, a confidence interval might show that the true support in the whole population is between 55% and 65%. This means researchers can be fairly confident that the actual support lies within that range. By using confidence intervals, sociologists can better understand and communicate the uncertainty in their findings.