CHAPTER TWO
SAMPLING DISTRIBUTION
2.1 Introduction
In Chapter One we discussed probability distributions of discrete and continuous random
variables. In this chapter we extend the concept of probability distribution of a random
variable to that of a sample statistic. We usually use inferential statistics methods to estimate
population parameter values of random variables by using findings from samples. In most
cases when conducting a certain investigation, we normally select some individuals to
represent the whole group of individuals at which an investigator is interested with. This is
due to factors related to cost of dealing with entire population, time, etc. Sampling is the
process of selecting a representative group from the population under study.The target
population is a collection of all individuals from which the sample might be drawn. A
sample is the group of people who take part in the investigation or in other words, a sample
is a subset of a given target population. There are different techniques for selecting sample,
these can be grouped into two categories; random (probability) sampling and non-
random(non-probability) sampling techniques.
2.2 Distribution of the sample mean
When a sample is selected from a normally distributed population, obviously it is also
normally distributed. Therefore in this section we expect to study the sampling distribution
of the sample mean and the so called sample proportion . Furthermore, it is anticipated
that since more than one samples can be selected from the given population, the
corresponding sample means are also expected to vary from one sample to the other, which
means sample mean can be treated as a random variable, which will have its own PDF.
If constitute independently and identically distributed random sample
variables of the size , then recall that the mean of these random sample can be denoted by
Then the expected value of is given by
by the properties of and operators
Then let for any , then
Therefore
Since for each and that are independent, then the variance of is given
by
=
Therefore if then
The square root of variance of is called the standard error of which is given by
Therefore the standardized normal variable in this case is given by
Central limit Theorem
The central limit theorem (CLT) is employed when the sample is taken from non-
normal populations. The theorem states that if constitute independently and
identically distributed random samples, then when the sample size is large ( then the
arithmetic mean is approximately normally distributed with mean and variance where
and are the mean and standard deviation of the population where the samples were
drawn
Example 2.1
A random X is normally distributed with mean 8 and variance 25. From a random sample of
36 observations, find
a) Standard error of this sampling distribution
b) The probability that the sample mean is greater than 9
Data Given
Let represents the sample mean calculated from a random sample of 36 observation. Then
a)
b)
Example 2.2
Revenues collected from a certain firm in thousands of dollars are assumed to be normally
distributed with mean 20 and standard deviation 8. Suppose that a random sample of 100
revenues were selected, find
a) Standard error of the sampling distribution.
b) Probability that the mean revenue is less 21.6 thousand dollars.
Data Given
Let represents the average revenue collected from 100 samples. Then
a)
b)
2.3 Distribution Of The Sample Proportion
Population proportion which is denoted by is obtained by taking the ratio of the number of
elements in a population with a specific characteristic to the total number of elements in the
population. Correspondingly, the sample proportion gives a similar ratio for a sample.
Rules of sample proportion say that if both and , then the sample
proportion is approximately normally distributed with mean (population proportion) and
variance where is the sample size. We write this statement as
Therefore the standard variable Z becomes
Where sample proportion is given by , is the number of success
Example 2.3
Suppose the proportion of all college students who have used marijuana in the past 6 months
is 40%, suppose a random sample of 200 students representing the population of all
students who use marijuana was taken, what is the probability that the proportion of
students who have used marijuana is less than 32%?
Solution
Given . Required to find
