SAMPLING DISTRIBUTION

OF SAMPLE MEANS

Researchers used For instance, a sample might be

drawn from the population, its
sampling if taken a mean is calculated, and this value is
census of the entire used as a statistic, or an estimate for
population is the population mean. Thus,
impractical. Data from descriptive measures computed from
the sample are used to a population are called parameters.
While descriptive measures,
calculate statistics, computed from a sample are called
which are estimates of statistics. We say that, the sample
the corresponding means is an estimate of the
population parameters. population mean (µ).
Simple Definition:
Statistics - is a number
which describes a
sample. It can be directly
computed and observed.
Examples of statistics
are:
1. Sample mean ( x )
2. Sample Standard
deviation (sd)
3. Sample median(md)
Parameters - is a descriptive
measure of population. The
value of a parameter can be
approximated and is not
necessarily equal to the
statistics of a sample. .
Population mean (µ),
population standard deviation(
σ), and population
median(Md) are examples of
parameters.

Sampling Distribution of Sample Means

is a frequency distribution using the means

computed from all possible random sample of
a specific size taken from a population.
 Steps in constructing the sampling
distribution of the means:
1. Determine the number of possible sample
that can be drawn from the population.

2. List all the possible samples and compute

its corresponding mean.

3. Construct a frequency distribution of the

sample means obtained in step 2.
Example:

A population consists of the number 2, 4,

9, 10 and 5. List all possible samples of size

3 from the population and compute the
mean of each sample.
 Sampling Distribution
is the probability where all possible samples of size n
are repeatedly drawn from a population N. The number
of samples of size n can be drawn from a population of
size N is given by NCn.

Let S = be the number of sample

size n.

S =
N Cn =
 SAMPLE MEAN
(2, 4, 9, 10 , 5)
2, 4, 9 (2+4+9)/3 = 5
2, 4, 10 5.33
2, 4, 5 3.67
2, 9, 10 7
2, 9, 5 5.33
2, 10, 5 5.67
4, 9, 10 7.67
4, 9, 5 6
4, 10, 5 6.33
9, 10, 5 8
SAMPLE MEAN FREQUENCY
3.67 1
5.0 1
5.33 2
5.67 1
6.0 1
6.33 1
7.0 1
7.67 1
8.0 1
n 10
SAMPLE MEAN FREQUENCY PROBABILITY
3.67 1 1/10 = 0.1
5.0 1 0.1
5.33 2 0.2
5.67 1 0.1
6.0 1 0.1
6.33 1 0.1
7.0 1 0.1
7.67 1 0.1
8.0 1 0.1
n 10 1.0
Make a Histogram
SAMPLE MEAN FREQUENCY PROBABILITY
3.67 1 0.10
5.00 1 0.10
5.33 2 0.20
5.67 1 0.10
6.00 1 0.10
6.33 1 0.10
7.00 1 0.10
7.67 1 0.10
8.00 1 0.10
Total n=10 1.00
The means of the sample vary from sample
to sample. Thus, any mean based on the
sample drawn from a population is expected
to assume different values for the samples.
So, this lead us to a conclusion that sample
mean is a random variable, which depends on
a particular sample. Being a random
variable, it has a probability distribution. The
probability distribution of the sample means
is also called the sampling distribution of the
sample means.
Observe that the mean of the samples are
less than or greater than the mean of the
population. The difference between the
sample mean and the population mean is
called the sampling error . It is the error due
to sampling.
Also that the total probability of all the
sample means must be equal to 1.