COMP6334 –Probability and Statistics

Course : COMP6334 –Probability and Statistics

Year : 2019

Sampling Distributions

Session 7
 Sampling Distributions

• Types of Sampling Method

• Sampling Distributions
• Sampling Distribution of the Mean
• Sampling Distribution of the Proportion
 Sampling
• Sampling is a procedure that uses a small number of units of a
given population as a basis for drawing conclusions about the
whole population.
• Sampling often is necessary because it would be practically
impossible to conduct a census to measure characteristics of all
units of a population. Samples also are needed in cases where
measurement involves destruction of the measured unit
• A primary purpose of statistical inference is to develop estimates
and test hypotheses about population parameters using
information contained in a sample.
 Sampling Distributions
of the Mean
• The sample mean is unbiased, because the expected value of the
sample means E ( X ) is equal to the mean of the population (µ)
E (X )  
Example : suppose a population consists of four administrative
assistants. Each assistant is asked to apply the same set of updates
to a human resources database. The table below presents the
number of errors made by each of the assistants
• Population Mean

• Population Standard Deviation

• Suppose we select samples of two administrative assistants with replacement from
this population, there are Nn = 42 = 16 possible samples as follows :

• The average all 16 of these sample means, the mean of these values is equal to 2.5,
which is also the mean of the population, µ. Therefore the sample mean is an
unbiased estimator of the population mean.
 Standard error of the Mean

• Standard error of the mean is the value of the standard deviation

of all possible sample means
• The standard error of the mean  X is equal to the standard
deviation in the population σ, divided by the square root of the
sample size, n

X 
n

• For the administrative assistants example :

 1.12
X    0.56
n 2
 Sampling from Normally
Distributed Populations

• If we take a sample from a population that is normally distributed

with mean µ and standard deviation σ, with sample size, n, then
the sampling distribution of the mean is normally distributed,
with mean
X  

and standard error of the mean  X 
n
 Finding Z For The Sampling
Distribution Of The Mean
The Z value is equal to the difference between the sample
mean, X, and the population mean, µ, divided by the
standard error of the
 X mean,
 Example
• The packaging equipment that is filling 368 gram boxes of cereal is
set so that the amount of cereal in a box is normally distributed,
with a mean of 368 grams. From past experience, we know the
population standard deviation for this filling process is 15 grams. If
a sample of 25 boxes randomly selected, what is the probability
that the sample will have a mean below 365 grams?

365  368
P( X  365)  P( Z  ( )  P( Z  1.00)  0.1587
15 / 25

• Therefore, 15.87% of all the possible samples of 25 boxes have a

sample mean below 365 grams.
 Sampling from Non-normally
Distributed Populations

The Central Limit Theorem

As the sample size (the number of values in each sample) gets large
enough, the sampling distribution of the mean is approximately normally
distributed. This is true regardless of the shape of the distribution of the
individual values in the population
Sampling distribution of
the mean for samples of
n = 2, 5, and 30, for three
different populations
 Sampling Distribution of the
Proportion
• The population proportion, π, is the proportion of items in
the entire population with the characteristic of interest
• The sample proportion, p, is the proportion of items in the
sample with the characteristic of interest
• p is an unbiased estimator of π
 The Sampling Distribution of
The Proportion

• The sampling distribution of the proportion follows the

binomial distribution but can be approximated using
the normal distribution when nπ and n (1 – π) are each at
least 5
• the standard error of the proportion, σp is

• And the Z value for the proportion

 Example
• The population proportion of adult using internet is 73% (π).
Suppose a random sample of 200 adults were selected. What is the
probability that more than 80% of adults using internet ?
0.8  0.73
P ( p  0.8)  P ( Z  ( )  P ( Z  2.23)  0.0129
(0.73)(1  0.73)
200

• Therefore, if the population proportion is 0.73, the probability is

1.29% that more than 80% of the 200 adults are using internet.
 Exercise
1. The fill amount of bottles of a soft drink is normally distributed,
with a mean of 2.0 liters and a standard deviation of 0.05 liter. If
you select a random sample of 25 bottles, what is the probability
that the sample mean will be
a. between 1.99 and 2.0 liters?
b. below 1.98 liters?

2. In a random sample of 64 people, 48 are classified as“successful.”

a. Determine the sample proportion, p, of “successful” people.
b. If the population proportion is 0.70, determine the standard
Error of the roportion.
 References

• Levine, D.M., Stephan, D. F., and Szabat, K. A. (2017).

Statistics for Managers using Microsoft Excel. 8th Ed.
Global Edition Pearson Education. New Jersey. ISBN 13:
978-1-292-15634-7.
• Anderson, D. R., Sweeney, D. J., and Williams, T. A. (2011).
Statistics for Business and Economics. 11th Ed. Cengage
Learning. Mason. ISBN 13: 978-0-324-78325-4

Bina Nusantara University 18

Thank You