Degrees of Freedom


Estimates of parameters can be based upon different amounts of information. The number of independent pieces of information that go into the estimate of a parameter is called the degrees of freedom (df). In general, the degrees of freedom of an estimate is equal to the number of independent scores that go into the estimate minus the number of parameters estimated as intermediate steps in the estimation of the parameter itself. For example, if the variance, σ², is to be estimated from a random sample of N independent scores, then the degrees of freedom is equal to the number of independent scores (N) minus the number of parameters estimated as intermediate steps (one, μ estimated by M) and is therefore equal to N-1.