An introduction to the standard error of the sample proportion

The standard error of the sample proportion measures how accurate the sample proportion is
The sample proportion is only the proportion of some of the things, It is only an estimate of all of the
things proportion of all of the things
The notation for sample proportion is
estimate

p , the p tells you it is a proportion the ^ tells you it is an

The notation for the population proportion is p

The bigger the sample is the more accurate it is ,
The notation for the sample size is n
I vital part of the course is
The sample proportion p estimates the population proportion p it has standard error

the standard error of

p is

proportion (1 proportion )
n

See the next page for examples

Example compare the standard errors given below , when the sample size is larger the standard
error is smaller
before the internet universities put all the marks for all students on notice boards. A student could
look at the marks of the subjects he was going to do next semester to see how hard they would be.

If I wanted to check the probability of passing

I could look a sample
Pass,Fail,Pass,Fai

Here Sample size n=4, sample proportion p =2/4=0.5

The standard error is

0.5(1 0.5)
0.25
4

So if you are told a sample of 100 students there were 80 students that passed
Then you should know sample size n=100, sample proportion

0.8(1 0.8)
0.04
100

p =80/100=0.8

The standard error is

You can use the results from last semester to predict this semester, The more people you
see the more better prediction is,
in the example above then standard error was 0.25 when n=4
the standard error was 0.04 when n=100, so bigger samples let you make bigger
predictions.