Sampling:
Part or portion of population selected for study purposes.
Statistic: is a characteristic of a sample
Parameter: is a characteristic of population
Types of Sampling: Two methods of selecting samples from populations:
Nonrandom or Judgment Sampling:
In Judgment sampling, personal knowledge and opinion are used to identify the items from
the population that are to be included in the sample.
This sampling is based on someone’s expertise about the population.
Random or probability Sampling:
In probability sampling, all the items in the population have a chance of being chosen in the
sample.
Four methods of random sampling:
Simple random sampling
Simple random Sampling selects samples by methods that allow each possible sample
to have an equal probability of being picked and each item in the entire population to
have an equal chance of being included in the sample.
Systematic sampling
In systematic sampling, elements are selected from the population at a uniform interval
that is measured in time, order, or space.
Stratified sampling
In this sampling, we divide the population into relatively homogeneous groups, called
strata. Then we use one of two approaches. Either we select at random from each
stratum a specified number of elements corresponding to the proportion of that stratum
in the population as a whole or we draw an equal number of elements from each
stratum and give weight to the results according to the stratum’s proportion of total
population.
Stratified sampling is appropriate when the population is already divided into groups of
different sizes and we wish to acknowledge this fact.
Cluster sampling
In cluster sampling, we divide the population into groups, or clusters, and then select a
random sample of these clusters. Every individual of that cluster/ sample will be
examined.
We use stratified sampling when each group has small variation within each group but
there is a wide variation between the groups, while cluster sampling is used in the
opposite case when there is wide variation within each group but the groups are
essentially similar to each other.
Sampling Distribution:
A probability distribution of all the possible statistics (means, medians, proportions) of the
samples is a distribution of the sample statistics (means, medians, proportions).
Statisticians call
Sampling distribution of the mean
Sampling distribution of the median
Sampling distribution of the proportion
Any probability distribution (and therefore, any sampling distribution) can be partially
described by its mean and standard deviation.
Population Sample Sample Statistic Sampling
Distribution
Water in River 10-gallon Mean number of Sampling distribution
Containers of parts of mercury of the mean
water per million parts
of water
All professional Cricket Group of 5 Median height Sampling distribution
Teams players of the median
All parts produced by a 50 parts Proportion Sampling distribution
manufacturing process defective of the proportion
Concept of Standard Error
“The standard deviation of the distribution of a sample statistic is known as the standard
error of the statistic.”
When we use the term Standard Error to describe a distribution, we mean “distribution’s
standard deviation”.
OR “the standard deviation of the distribution of sample means”
we say “the standard error of the mean”.
Similarly “the standard deviation of the distribution of sample proportions”
we say “the standard error of the proportion”.
Example: Population of heights of new comer students (Part-I) at University of Sindh.
This population distribution of heights has a mean (mu) and a standard
deviation (sigma).
Take series of all possible samples (each consists of 50 student’s heights)
and calculate the mean and standard deviation for each one of these samples.
As a result, each sample would have its own mean, ( bar), and its own
standard deviation S.
All the individual sample means would not be the same as the population
mean. They would tend to be near the population mean, but only rarely
would they have been exactly that value.
Now we produce a distribution of all the means from every sample that
could be taken. This distribution called the sampling distribution of the
mean.
This distribution of sampling means (the sampling distribution) would have
its own mean (mu sub bar) and its own standard deviation (sigma sub
bar)
The standard deviation of the distribution of sample means ( ) is the
“standard error of the mean”.
“Standard Error of the mean” measures the extent to which we expect the
means from the different samples to vary.
Sampling from Normal Populations:
Sampling distribution of a mean of a sample taken from a normally distributed population
demonstrates the important properties:
1. The sampling distribution has a mean equal to the population mean
=
2. The sampling distribution has a standard deviation (a standard error) equal to the
population standard deviation by the square root of the sample size
Question: A bank calculates that its individual savings accounts are normally distributed
with a mean of $2000 and a standard deviation of $600. If the bank takes a
random sample of 100 accounts, what is the probability that the sample mean
will lie between $1900 and $2050?
Solution: This question is about the sampling distribution of the mean, therefore we
calculate standard error of the mean.
The equation to calculate standard error of the mean is
Applying this to our question, we have
← Standard error of the mean
Now we use the equation of z values, which enables us to use standard Normal
Probability Distribution table to determine the probability that the sample mean
will lie between $1900 and $2050.
First we calculate for
← Standard deviations from the mean of SNPD
Now we calculate Z value for
← Standard deviations from the mean of SNPD
Now we use standard Normal Probability Distribution table to determine the
probability for a Z value of -1.67, which we find 0.4525
and for a Z value of 0.83, we find 0.2967.
P(1900 ≤ X≤ 2050) = P(-1.67 ≤ Z≤ 0.83)
= P(-1.67 ≤ Z ≤ 0) + P(0 ≤ Z ≤ 0.83)
= 0.4525 + 0.2967 = 0.7492
Hence 0.7492 is the total probability that the sample mean will lie between
$1900 and $2050.
The mean of the sampling distribution of the mean will equal the population mean
regardless of the sample size, even if the population is not normal.
The sampling distribution of the mean will approach normality, regardless of the
shape of the population distribution.
The Central Limit Theorem
The relationship between the shape of the population distribution and the shape of the
sampling distribution of the mean is called the central limit theorem.
It assures us that the sampling distribution of the mean approaches normal as the sample
size increases.
The significance of the central limit theorem is that it permits us to use sample statistics to
make inferences about population parameters without knowing anything about the shape of
the frequency distribution of that population other than what we can get from the sample.
Question: The distribution of annual earnings of all bank tellers with five years’
experience has a mean of $19,000 and a standard deviation of $2,000. If we
draw a sample of 30 tellers, what is the probability that their earnings will
average more than $19,750 annually?
Solution:
First we calculate the standard error of the mean from the population
standard deviation:
The equation to calculate standard error of the mean is
← Standard error of the mean
As we are dealing with a sampling distribution, we must use the equation of
Z value and SNPD table for
← Standard deviations from the mean of SNPD
Now we use standard Normal Probability Distribution table to determine the
probability for a Z value of 2.05, which we find 0.4798.
P(X ≥ 19750) = Probability b/w the mean & the right-hand tail – P(0 ≤ Z ≤ 2.05)
= 0.5 – 0.4798
= 0.0202
Hence there is .0202 probability of average earnings being more than
$19,750 annually in a group of 30 tellers.
