THE NORMAL

DISTRIBUTION
Normal Distributions
Applications of the Normal Distribution
Objectives
• Identify distributions as symmetric or skewed.
• Identify the properties of a normal distribution.
• Find the area under the normal distribution, given various z values.
• Find probabilities for a normally distributed variable by transforming
into a standard normal variable.
• Find specific data values for given percentages, using the standard
normal distribution.
 Types of Random Variables

Discrete Continuous

Has finite numerical values

Cannot assume all values
associated with any interval
between any two given
on the number line system
values of the variables
without any gaps or breaks.

Examples:
 Number of eggs in a Examples:
basket  Heights of adult men
 Number of Facebook likes  Body temperature of rats
 Number of votes in an  Cholesterol levels of adults
election
bell curve or a Gaussian distribution
Carl Friedrich Gauss
What is a normal distribution?
- is a continuous, symmetric, bell-shaped distribution of a variable

Examples:
 Physical characteristics such as height, weight, arm or leg length
 Percentile ranks of standardized test such as NAT, NCAE
 The volume of water produced by a river on monthly or yearly basis
Find the area under the normal distribution,
given various z values using:

 Excel
https://onlinestatbook.com/2/calculators/norm
al_dist.html
Determining Normality
Several ways to check for normality:
1. Draw a histogram for the data and check its shape. If the histogram
is not approximately bell-shaped, then the data are not normally
distributed.
2. Skewness. If the index is greater than or equal to 1 or less than or
equal to -1, it can be concluded that the data are significantly
skewed.
Determining Normality
Several ways to check for normality:
3. Outliers