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Objectives/Assignment
How to find sampling distributions and verify their properties How to interpret the Central Limit Theorem How to apply the Central Limit Theorem to find the probability of a sample mean
Introduction
In previous sections, you studied the relationship between the mean of a population and values of random variable. In this section, you will study the relationship between a population mean and the means of samples taken from the population. Definition: A sampling distribution is the probability distribution of a sample statistic that is formed when samples of sizes n are repeatedly taken from a population. If the sample statistic is the sample mean, then the distribution is the sampling distribution of sample means.
Sampling Distributions
For instance, consider the following Venn diagram. The rectangle represents a large population, and each circle represents a sample of size n. Because the sample entries can differ, the sample means can also differ. The mean of Sample 1 is x1, the mean of Sample 2 is x2, and so on. The sampling distribution of the sample means of size n for this population consists of x1, x2, x3, and so on. If the samples are drawn with replacement, an infinite number of samples can be drawn from the population.
Solution
List all 16 samples of size 2 from the population and the mean of each sample.
Solution continued
After constructing a relative frequency distribution of the sample means, you can graph the sampling distribution by using a relative histogram as shown. Notice the shape of the histogram is bell shaped and symmetric, similar to a normal curve. The mean, variance and standard deviation of the 16 sample means are:
Insight
The distribution of sample means has the same mean as the population. But its standard deviation is less than the standard deviation of the population. This tells you that the distribution of sample means has the same center as the population, but it is not as spread out. Moreover, the distribution of the sample means becomes less and less spread out (tighter concentration about the mean) as the sample size n increases.
Solution
The mean of the sampling distributions is equal to the population mean, and the standard error of the mean is equal to the population standard deviation divided by n. So,
Solution continued
From the Central Limit Theorem, because the sample size is greater than 30, the sampling distribution can be approximated by a normal distribution with = $64 and = $1.50
Solution
The mean of the sampling distribution is equal to the population mean and the standard error of the mean is equal to the population standard deviation divided by n. So,
Solution
From the Central Limit Theorem, because the population is normally distributed, the sampling distribution is also normally distributed.
Ex. 4: Solution
The graph of this distribution is shown right with a shaded area between 8.7 and 9.5 minutes.
Ex. 4: Solution
Because the sample size is greater than 30, you can use the Central Limit Theorem to conclude that the distribution of sample means is approximately normal with a mean and a standard deviation of:
Ex. 4: Solution
The z-scores that correspond to sample means of 8.7 and 9.5 minutes are
So, the probability that the mean time the adults spend reading the newspaper is between 8.7 and 9.5 is:
So, 91.16% of adults aged 18 to 24 spend between 8.7 and 9.5 minutes reading the newspaper.
Ex. 5 Solution
Because the population is normally distributed, you can use the Central Limit Theorem to conclude that the distribution of sample means is normally distributed with a mean of $780 and a standard deviation of $150.
The graph of this distribution is shown. The area to the left of $825 is shaded. The zscore that corresponds to $825 is:
Ex. 5 Solution
The graph of this distribution is shown. The area to the left of $825 is shaded. The zscore that corresponds to $825 is:
1. In this case, you are asked to find the probability associated with a certain value of the random variable, x. The z-score that corresponds to x = $2500 is
2. Here, you are asked to find the probability associated with a sample mean x bar. The z-score that corresponds to x bar = $2500 is
3. Where there is a 34% chance that an individual will have a balance of less than $2500, there is only a 2% chance that the mean of a sample of 25 will have a balance of less than $2500
OR