STATISTICS AND PROBABILITY This type of sampling is often more practical than simple
(STUDY NOTES) random sampling for studies requiring "on location"
What is a random sample?
A random sample is a sample that is chosen randomly. It
could be more accurately called a randomly chosen
sample.
Random samples are used to avoid bias and other
unwanted effects. Of course, it isn’t quite as simple as it
seems: choosing a random sample isn’t as simple as just
picking 100 people from 10,000 people.
What is random sampling?
Random Sampling is the process of choosing a
representative sample from a target population and
collecting data from that sample in order to understand
something about the population as a whole.
Simple random sampling is the basic sampling technique
where we select a group of subjects (a sample) for study
from a larger group (a population).
A simple random sample is meant to be an unbiased
representation of a group. It is considered a fair way to
select a sample from a larger population since every
member of the population has an equal chance of
getting selected.
An example of a simple random sample would be the
names of 25 employees being chosen from a company
of 250 employees.
Stratified random sampling is a factor which divides the
population into sub-populations (groups/strata) and we
may expect the measurement of interest to vary among
the different sub-populations.
The word Strata is the plural form of stratum, which
means a subgroup.
If there are two or more subgroup, it is called strata.
We use stratified random sampling for a population that
has a distinct element because in a stratified random
sampling, we are dividing the population into a certain
group based on their classification.
Example, a farmer wishes to milk each cow type in his
herd which consists of 4 breeds.
He could divide his cows into four sub-groups and
collect milk.
Multistage random sample is constructed by taking a
series of simple random samples in stages.
analysis such as door-to-door surveys.
What is a parameter?
Parameters are numbers that summarizes data for an
entire population.
It is any numerical quantity that characterizes a given
population or some aspect of it.
It tells something about the whole population.
What is statistics?
Statistics are numbers that summarize data from a
sample.
It is a single measure of some attribute of a sample.
It is any function (attribute) of a sample.
What is the difference between a parameter and a
statistics?
Parameter is a characteristic of a population.
Statistics is a characteristic of a sample.
A Population Parameter is a summary measure to
describe the characteristics of the whole population. It
is usually denoted by Greek letters.
A Sample Statistic is a summary measure computed
from a sample to describe the characteristic of the
whole population.
Sampling Distribution
Sampling can be done in two ways: with or without
replacement.
For sampling with replacement, any datum chosen from
the population to form the sample is returned to the
population so that it has a chance of being chosen
again. The size of the population remains the same in
every selection of a sampling unit.
For sampling without replacement , it indicates that
once a sampling unit is chosen, it has no further chance
of being chosen. In this case, the size of the population
available for sampling is reduced as each sampling unit
is chosen.
Random Sample
A random sample chosen without replacement is called
a simple random sample.
If the population under investigation is large enough,
then sampling without replacement may be
approximated by sampling with replacement.
Sampling distribution of sample means
A sampling distribution of sample means is a frequency
distribution using the means computed from all possible
random samples of a specific size taken from a
population.
The means vary from sample to sample.
In a given data {2,4,9,10,5}.
Let us list all possible samples of sizes 3 from this
population and compute the mean of each sample.
Observe that the means vary from sample to sample.
Thus, any mean based on the sample drawn from a
population is expected to assume different values for
the samples.
So we can say that the sample mean is a random
variable which depends on a particular sample.
The sampling distribution of a sample mean is the
probability that the mean of a given sample would
appear.
A sampling distribution shows every possible result a
statistic can take in every possible sample from a
population and how often each result may happen.
What does the variance indicate?
The variance is a numerical value used to indicate how
widely individuals in a group vary.
If individual observations vary greatly from the group
mean, the variance is big; and vice versa.
The number of observation in the population is
important in a sampling distribution because it is the
basis of all our computation.
Z-Test
A z-test is a statistical test used to determine whether
two population means are different when the variances
are known and the sample size is large.
A Z-test is best used if there are more than 30 samples.
T-Test
A t-test is commonly used in small sample sizes when
testing the difference between the samples if the
variances of two normal distributions are not known.
T-test is best used when there is less than 30 samples.
T-test is appropriate whenever you want to compare the
means of two groups.
What are the fundamental theorems of probability?
The Fundamental Theorems of Probability are Law of
large numbers and Central Limit Theorem .
Law of Large numbers
The law of large numbers states that the sample mean
converges to the distribution mean as the sample size
increases and is one of the fundamental theorems of
probability.
Central Limit theorem
The central limit theorem states that the distribution of
the sum (or average) of a large number of independent,
identically distributed variables will be approximately
normal, regardless of the underlying distribution.
The central limit theorem states that if a random
sample size are drawn from a population, then as
sample sizes becomes larger, the sampling distribution
of the mean approaches the normal distribution.
When should the central limit theorem be used?
Central Limit theorem is best used in large sample sizes.
As a general rule, sample sizes equal to or greater than
30 are considered sufficient for the central limit
theorem to hold.
Since it uses large sample sizes, it justifies the use of
normal curve methods for a wider range of problems.
It also assures us that no matter what the shape of the
population distribution (normal curve), the sampling
distribution of the sample means is closely normally
distributed whenever the sample size is large.