t-Distribution

Prepared by Ma'am Rae Fajilan

Objectives
● Define the t-distribution
● Illustrate the t-distribution
● Solve for t-values
● Identify percentiles using the t-table.
The t-Distribution
The t-distribution, also known as Student’s t-distribution, is a
probability distribution developed by William Sealy Gosset in
1908. It is a way of describing data that follow a bell curve
when plotted on a graph, with the greatest number of
observations close to the mean and fewer observations in the
tails.
It is a type of normal distribution used for small sample sizes,
where the variance in the data is unknown.
Illustration
t-Distribution Formula

● The t-value is computed using the formula

where,
 The t-Table

DEGREES OF FREEDOM

df = n - 1
Examples
Find the critical value of t using the given below.

1) A random sample of 20 students were asked to

estimate the total number of hours they spend
watching television in an average week. What is the
t-critical value if the significance level is 0.02?
Examples
Find the critical value of t using the given below.

2) Suppose you do a study of acupuncture to determine

how effective it is in relieving pain. You measure sensory
rates for 15 subjects with the results given. Use the
sample data to construct a 95% confidence interval for
the mean sensory rate for the population (assumed
normal) from which you took the data.
Identifying Percentiles using the t-Table

Percentiles
It is a value on a scale of one hundred that indicates the
percent of a distribution that is equal to or below it.
(Merriam Webster)
Identifying Percentiles using the t-Table
Identifying Percentiles using the t-Table

Example
Find the 95th percentile in the t-distribution table when
the degrees of freedom is 10.

This means that we will be looking

for the critical value of t, at 5% level
of significance (one-tailed).
Examples

1) Find the 99th percentile of the t-distribution with 19

samples.

2) Find if the degrees of freedom is 23.

References https://www.scribbr.com/statistics/t-distribution/

https://stats.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_Sta
tistics/Introductory_Statistics_1e_(OpenStax)/08%3A_Co
nfidence_Intervals/8.03%3A_A_Single_Population_Mean_
using_the_Student_t-Distribution

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