St.

Mary’s Dominican School

San Manuel, Pangasinan

STATISTICS AND PROBABILITY

Introduction

This study guide was designed to help you in accomplishing your tasks for our module topic about Statistics
and Probability. This module is designed for you to make your homebased learning meaningful, memorable
and interesting as we care for your safety and wellbeing. This module hopes to make you apply the concepts
and skills in Statistics and Probability. You are expected to apply an appropriate random variable for a given
real-life problem (such as in decision making and games of chances).
Big Ideas Learning Objectives

We will use the following big ideas to guide our At the end of this module, you should be able to:
inquiry about the random variable.
1. illustrate random variable;
Emphasize the meaning of a discrete probability 2. Distinguish between discrete and a continuous
distribution and the properties that must be satisfied variable;
before a distribution can be considered a discrete 3. Illustrate the mean, variance, and standard
probability distribution. deviation of a discrete random variables; and
4. Calculate the mean, variance, and standard
Emphasize the procedure on how to construct a deviation of a discrete random variables.
probability distribution and how to find the expected
value of X.
Essential Questions Key Concepts & Skills

We will focus our inquiry about the random variable Through our inquiry about the random variable, you
through these essential questions: will know:

How important are the concepts of random variables  Random variables

and probability distributions in real life?
How are the means and the variances of discrete 
random variables interpreted?
 Mean, Variance, and Standard Deviation of a
Discrete Random Variable.
Problems Involving Mean, Variance, and
Standard Deviation of a Discrete Random
Variable

You will be able to:

 Find the possible values of random variable.

 Illustrate a probability distribution for a discrete
random variable and its properties.
 Calculate the expected value of a discrete
random variable.
 Interpret the mean and variance of discrete
random variable.
Learning Plan
A random variable is a variable whose possible values are determined by chance. A random variable is
typically represented by an uppercase letter, usually X, while corresponding lowercase letter in this case, x,
is used to represent one of its values. For example, a coin is tossed thrice. Let the variable X represent the
number of heads that result from this experiment.
In the illustration above, random variable is represented by the uppercase X. The lowercase x represents the
specific values. Hence, x=3, x=2, x=1, x=2, x=1, x=1, and x=0.
The samplee space for the possible outcomes is S = (HHH, HHT, HTH, HTT, THH, THT, TTH, TTT).
The value of the variable X can be 0, 1, 2, or 3. Then, in this example X is a random variable.

Random Variable can be either discrete or continuous.

A discrete random variable can only take a finite (countable) number of distinct values. Mostly discrete
random variables represents count data, such as the number of defectives chairs produced in a factory,
number of students randomly selected to be interviewed by a researcher, number of defective light bulbs,
and number of women randomly selected to a political rally.

A continuous random variable can assume an infinite number of values in an interval between two specific
values. This means they can assume values that can be represented not only by nonnegative whole numbers
but also by fractions and decimals. These values are often results of measurements, such as heights, weights,
and temperatures.

The discrete probability distribution is a listing of all possible values of a discrete random variables along
with their corresponding probabilities. The following properties must be satisfied before a distribution can
be considered a discrete probability distribution.
a. The probablity of each value of a discrete random variable is between 0 and 1 inclusive.
b. The sum of all probabilities is 1.

EXAMPLE 1:

In the table, the random variable X assumes the values 0, 1, 2, and 3. The corresponding probabilities of
these values are 0.2, 0.3, 0.3, and 0.2, respectively. The corresponding probabilities are each less than 1 but
greater than 0 and when added, the sum is 1.

EXAMPLE 2:
 Mean, Variance and Standard Deviation of a Discrete Random Variable
The mean or expected value of a discrete random variable X is computed using the following formula:

EXAMPLE 1:
A researcher surveyed the households in a small town. The random variable X represents the number of
college graduates in the households. Find the mean or expected value of X.

SOLUTION:

The expected value is 1. So the average number of college graduates in the household of the small town is
one.

EXAMPLE 2: SOLUTION:

The variance of a random variable is the expected value of the square of the difference between the assumed
value of random variable and the mean.

The standard deviation of a discrete random variable X is the square root of the variance.

EXAMPLE 3:
Determine the variance and the standard deviation of the following probability mass function.
x 1 2 3 4 5 6
P(x) 0.15 0.25 0.30 0.15 0.10 0.05
 SOLUTION:
STEPS:
1. Find the expected value.
2. Subtract the expected value from each outcome. Square each difference.
3. Multiply each sqaured difference by the corresponding probability.
4. Sum up all the figures obatined in Step 3.

ALTERNATIVE METHOD:

ASSESSMENT:
QUIZ NO. 1
INSTRUCTION: Classify the following random variables as discrete or continuous.
1. The number of defective computers produced by a manufacturer.
2. The wieght of newborns each year in a hospital.
3. The number of siblings in a family of a region.
4. The amount of paint utilized by a building project.
5. The number of drop out in a school district for a period of 10 years.
6. The speeed of a car.
7. The time needed to finish the test.
8. The amount of sugar in a cup of coffee.
9. The number of people who are playing LOTTO each day.
10. The number of accidents per year at an intersection.
11. The number of voters favoring candidate.
12. The number of bushels of apples per hectare this year.
13. The number of patient arrivals per hour at a medical clinic.
14. The average amount of electricity consumed per household per month.
15. The number of deaths per year attributed to lung cancer.

INSTRUCTION: Determine the variance and the standard deviation of the following probability mass
function. Use any of the two method.

Prepared by:
Miss Dominica B. Biado