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The sample mean is the average of the values of a variable in a sample, which is the sum of those values divided by the number of values. Using mathematical notation, if a sample of N observations on variable X is taken from the population, the sample mean is: ¯ = =.
In statistics, a sampling distribution or finite-sample distribution is the probability distribution of a given random-sample-based statistic.For an arbitrarily large number of samples where each sample, involving multiple observations (data points), is separately used to compute one value of a statistic (for example, the sample mean or sample variance) per sample, the sampling distribution is ...
The sample size is an important feature of any empirical study in which the goal is to make inferences about a population from a sample. In practice, the sample size used in a study is usually determined based on the cost, time, or convenience of collecting the data, and the need for it to offer sufficient statistical power. In complex studies ...
Mathematically, the variance of the sampling mean distribution obtained is equal to the variance of the population divided by the sample size. This is because as the sample size increases, sample means cluster more closely around the population mean.
(The sample mean need not be a consistent estimator for any population mean, because no mean needs to exist for a heavy-tailed distribution.) A well-defined and robust statistic for the central tendency is the sample median, which is consistent and median-unbiased for the population median.
A probability sample is a sample in which every unit in the population has a chance (greater than zero) of being selected in the sample, and this probability can be accurately determined. The combination of these traits makes it possible to produce unbiased estimates of population totals, by weighting sampled units according to their ...
In statistics, an estimator is a rule for calculating an estimate of a given quantity based on observed data: thus the rule (the estimator), the quantity of interest (the estimand) and its result (the estimate) are distinguished. [1] For example, the sample mean is a commonly used estimator of the population mean. There are point and interval ...
Based on this sample, the estimated population mean is 10, and the unbiased estimate of population variance is 30. Both the naïve algorithm and two-pass algorithm compute these values correctly. Next consider the sample ( 10 8 + 4 , 10 8 + 7 , 10 8 + 13 , 10 8 + 16 ), which gives rise to the same estimated variance as the first sample.