Sampling Distributions for Sample Means (College Board AP® Statistics): Study Guide

Sampling distributions for sample means

What is the sampling distribution for sample means?

• If you take all possible samples of size from a population and calculate the sample mean, , for each

  • then you would have all possible values of the sample mean

    • This collection of all possible sample means is called the sampling distribution for sample means

• This sampling distribution is often shown on a graph to see its shape

  • e.g. a relative frequency chart or histogram

What are the mean and standard deviation of the sampling distribution for sample means?

• If the population has a population mean of and a population standard deviation of

  • then the sampling distribution for sample means, , for samples of size :

    • has a mean of

    • and a standard deviation of

  • Note how the standard deviation of sample means depends on

    • A larger sample size gives a smaller standard deviation

What conditions are needed for normality?

• If in addition to the above, the population is known to be normally distributed

  • then the sampling distribution for sample means is also normally distributed

    • with mean and standard deviation

• You can use these properties to calculate probabilities involving sample means, , which follow a normal distribution

  • The standardized z-statistic is

    • and will be given in the question

What do I do if the population is not normally distributed?

• If the population is not normally distributed, then you cannot say the sampling distribution for sample means is normally distributed

  • This means you cannot work out any probabilities

• However, despite not knowing its shape, the sampling distribution for sample means still has a

  • mean of and a standard deviation of

    • i.e. you can always write these down, even though the distribution is unknown