120MP Lab 5 Continuous Distributions in Minitab

Minitab is a software package for carrying out statistical analysis.

You may download a personal copy of the software from the Student Portal.
It is also available on all the computers in the EC Building and the library.
To start Minitab, you either select it from the Programs menu or use the Software Portal

It can create graphs of continuous probability distributions as follows:

Graph > Probability Distribution Plot > Vary Parameters

Uniform Distribution
Plot the Uniform distribution from 0 to 1.

The graph will appear in a new window. You can use Window > Tile to see all the
active windows.

What is its probability density function?

________f(x) = 1 0 ≤ x ≤ 1________________________________

This is the distribution followed by the Ran# function on your calculator.

Use Ctrl-E to return to the dialog and enter the three Upper endpoints 1, 2 and 3
separated by spaces

They are all different heights, but what value has stayed the same?

____ Area = 1 ____________________________________

120MP Lab5 1
Beta Distribution
This is a very versatile distribution whose density function is f(x) = k xa-1 (1 - x)b-1 0 ≤ x ≤ 1

Consider what functions would produce the shapes in the table below. Hence find values of a and
b for the beta distribution which would produce graphs with those shapes.

Shape First shape Second shape

parameter a parameter b
Uniform 1 1
Triangular 1 2
Parabolic (dome shape) 2 2
Bell shaped 5 5
Positively skewed 2 3
(stretched in the +ve direction)
Negatively skewed 3 2
(stretched in the –ve direction)
U-shaped 0.5 0.5
or similar

Normal Distribution
Produce a Normal distribution plot with mean 0 and standard deviation 1.

Leave the standard deviation as 1 and enter the means 3, 4 and 5.

What is the effect on the graph of increasing the mean?

shifts the whole distribution positively along the x axis
__________________________________________________________________

Now set the mean to 10 and enter the standard deviations 1, 2 and 3.

What is the effect on the graph of increasing the standard deviation?

makes the distribution wider
__________________________________________________________________

120MP Lab5 2
For each the Normal distributions you have produced, estimate the range by looking at the values
on the X axis. Write them in the table below along with their means and standard deviations

Mean Standard deviation Range

0 1 6

3 1 6

4 1 6

5 1 6

10 1 6

10 2 12

10 3 18

Hence find an approximate mathematical relationship between the standard deviation and
the range:

Range ≈ 6 sd
________________________________________________________________

t Distribution
The t distribution is controlled by just one parameter, called its degrees of freedom.

Produce a t distribution with 100 degrees of freedom.

What are its mean, median, mode? What does it look like?

_mean, median, mode 0. Symmetrical, like a Normal distn_______________________

What happens to the t distribution as you reduce the degrees of freedom down to 1?

__gets wider and shorter________________________________________________

120MP Lab5 3
Comparing distributions

Graph > Probability Distribution Plot > Two Distributions.

Find values for the parameters for a Binomial distribution and for a Normal distribution
which produce very similar graphs ie they overlap

Eg Bin(100,0.5) N(50,5)
_________________________________________________________________

Find values for the parameters for a Poisson distribution and for a Normal distribution
which produce very similar graphs ie they overlap

Eg Po(100) N(100,10)

Find values for the parameters for a Beta distribution and for a Normal distribution which
produce very similar graphs ie they overlap

Eg B(5,5) N(0.5,0.15)
__________________________________________________________________

120MP Lab5 4