Interpreting the Mean

and Variance of a
Probability Distributions
What’s the
formula?
Situation 1: I am thinking
of finding the average
number of heads that
would appear
if I will toss two coins
together twice. Which
formula should I use?
Situation 2: I went to the
grocery store and I noticed that
there are five different kinds
of brown sugar at different
prices, each brand has
different probabilities that they
will be sold. What formula
should I use if I want to
determine how the prices vary
from the average price of the
product that would be sold to
the customers repeatedly?
An Unfair Die
Suppose an unfair die is rolled and let X be the
random variable representing the
number of dots that would appear with a probability
distribution below.
The variance of the random
variable X (the number of
dots appeared) is equal to
1.81 while the standard
deviation is equal to 1.35.
Take note that, small variance or
standard deviation means that the
assumed values or data points
tend to be very close to the mean,
while higher variance or standard
deviation means that the assumed
values or data points are spread
out from the mean.
Specifically, the variance and standard
deviation measures or describes how far
a set of data (assumed values of random
variables) is spread out. Since the value
of the standard deviation is 1.35, we can
say that the assumed values of each
outcome are somewhat close to the mean
for about 1.35 units from the mean.
The first data in the following
examples is somewhat
expected to have a higher
variance and standard
deviation or variability compare
to the other data.
Example 1
The population size of 100 different countries
around the world compare to the
population of 10 countries belong to the first world
countries.
Due to a large number of samples (100 different
countries) and other factors such as land area, economic
status, etc., you may say that most likely you will get a
higher variance and standard deviation compared to the
population of 10 countries belong to the first world
countries
Example 2
The number of students in different
universities compares to the number of
students in a class in a particular school.
Considering different universities with different
size and course offerings, you may say that
the difference between their enrolments will
be much higher than the difference of each
class size in a particular school
Example 3
The number of people who love to play
basketball in different barangays to the
number of basketball players from different
teams who play in the first-quarter game.
Basketball is a famous game and almost every guy loves to play this game. Imagine
that you will gather the number of people who love to play from different barangays,
it is expected that you will gather different results compared to the number of
basketball players from different teams who play in the first-quarter game. Almost
everybody is aware that there are only five players from each team to play a game,
therefore if you will compute the variance of the data from different teams you will
get a value of zero. The mean will be equal to 5 because each team who play the game
will should have 5 players only, at the same time if you will compute the variance of
distribution with equal inputs you will get a value of zero.
The mean, variance, and
standard deviation are
important in
statistics because they serve
as the basis for other types of
statistical calculations or
statistical tests.
Analyze the following pairs of
data and identify which of the
following will most likely
yield to a higher variance and
higher standard deviation. Put
a check mark on the
appropriate box.
Oh, what a game!
Things to do:
Device a game of chance using a fair die with corresponding
winnings and losses. For example, in rolling a die you may assign
even outcomes as winning outcomes and the odd outcomes as the
losses or think of your own plan. Let X the amount to be won by a
player or the amount he will lose when he plays your game.
Compute for the mean or the average amount a player may win or
lose, the variance and the standard deviation, and interpret the
results. Don’t forget that each face of a die has a probability of 1/6.
Be prepared to describe your game and demonstrate it in our class
next meeting or you may prepare a video of your demonstration to
be submitted online.