SOLVING FOR THE MEAN,

VARIANCE, AND STANDARD

DEVIATION OF DISCRETE
PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION
 Anydiscrete probability has a mean, a variance and a
standard deviation.
 The mean is the average of all possible outcomes.
 The variance and the standard deviation are measures
of spread or variability.
 Variance and Standard Deviation

 Ifthe values of the variance

and the standard deviation are
high, the individual outcomes
of the experiment are far
relatively from each other.
In other words, the values
differ greatly.
 Variance and Standard Deviation

 Ifthe values of the variance and

the standard deviation are low,
the individual outcomes of the
experiment are closed spaced
with each other. In other
words, the values are almost the
same or if they do differ, the
difference is small.
 Example

 Ina 5-item test, the probabilities that a student gets 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5

mistakes are respectively.
 What is the average number of mistakes that a student makes in this
class?
 What is the variance and the standard deviation of this discrete
probability distribution?
 What is the average number of mistakes that a
student makes in this class?

No. of mistakes Probability

X * P(X)
X P(X)
0 0 To solve for the mean, get the in the
1
third column.

2 The Greek letter (myu) to represents the

3 mean.

5
 What is the average number of mistakes that a
student makes in this class?

No. of mistakes Probability

X * P(X)
X P(X)
0 0

5
 What is the variance and the standard deviation of this
discrete probability distribution?

No. of mistakes Probability

X * P(X) X-
X P(X)

0 0

5
How to solve the variance and the standard
deviation ?
For the Variance:

For the Standard Deviation:

Two Content Layout with SmartArt

 First bullet point here

Group A
 Second bullet point here
• Task 1
• Task 2  Third bullet point here

Group B
• Task 1
• Task 2

Group C
• Task 1
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