5/3/2021 Apex Learning - Audio Transcript

Transcript: Estimates

In inferential statistics, we use data we've collected from a sample to infer some conclusion about a
population we can't measure directly. In this tutorial, we'll talk about confidence intervals to estimate
population parameters. Let's see how they work.

Imagine you want to estimate how far the frogs in your area of the country can jump. You start by taking
a random sample of the frogs in your area.

Of course, taking a truly random sample of frogs usually isn't that easy. Here's a way that will give you a
sample close enough to a random one for your purposes. Use a map to randomly select 25 ponds in
your state, go to each pond, and catch a frog. You could argue that the frogs you catch might be
systematically different from the general frog population because you're getting ones that are easier to
catch, but we'll assume they're representative for the sake of this study. Once you've caught the frog,
make it jump and record the length of its jump to the nearest tenth of a centimeter. Here's the data for
the 25 frogs.

How can we use the data to make a statement about the average frog jump length in your area of the
country? We could just find the mean of the jumps and declare it as the average jump length in the frog
population. The mean of this sample, which we call , is 13.54 cm. 13.54 is called a point estimate of
the population mean µ. It's a single number used to estimate the population parameter of interest. If our
sample is a random one, then will be an unbiased estimator of µ. However, because of random
variability, a second sample of 25 frogs would probably give us a different point estimate of µ. And a
larger sample size would probably give a point estimate of µ that was closer to the true population
mean, meaning that there would be less variability in our sampling.

We want to know how reliable our estimate for µ is. In other words, how much is it likely to vary from the
true population mean?

To answer this question, we can use the Central Limit Theorem, which tells us how sample means
behave in repeated sampling. If a population has a mean µ and a standard deviation σ, in repeated
random samples of size n, the distribution of the sample mean follows an approximately normal
distribution with mean µ and standard deviation σ/ .

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5/3/2021 Apex Learning - Audio Transcript

We know that the standard deviation of the jump length of individual frogs is 1.5 cm from past research.
And due to the Central Limit Theorem, in repeated samples of size 25 the mean follows an
approximately normal distribution centered at the population mean µ and having a standard deviation of
0.3.

Recall that according to the Central Limit Theorem, as long as your sample size is large enough, your
sampling distribution will be approximately normal, no matter what kind of distribution the population
has.

Keep in mind that if you aren't able to draw a large enough sample — let's say you could only draw a
sample with 5 observations — you'd need to know if your population distribution is normal.

In general, a sample should include 30 or more observations to give an approximately normal

distribution .

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