# 8.2 A single population mean using the student t distribution

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In practice, we rarely know the population standard deviation . In the past, when the sample size was large, this did not present a problem to statisticians. They used the sample standard deviation s as an estimate for σ and proceeded as before to calculate a confidence interval with close enough results. However, statisticians ran into problems when the sample size was small. A small sample size caused inaccuracies in the confidence interval.

William S. Goset (1876–1937) of the Guinness brewery in Dublin, Ireland ran into this problem. His experiments with hops and barley produced very few samples. Just replacing σ with s did not produce accurate results when he tried to calculate a confidence interval. He realized that he could not use a normal distribution for the calculation; he found that the actual distribution depends on the sample size. This problem led him to "discover" what is called the Student's t-distribution . The name comes from the fact that Gosset wrote under the pen name "Student."

Up until the mid-1970s, some statisticians used the normal distribution approximation for large sample sizes and only used the Student's t-distribution only for sample sizes of at most 30. With graphing calculators and computers, the practice now is to use the Student's t-distribution whenever s is used as an estimate for σ .

If you draw a simple random sample of size n from a population that has an approximately a normal distribution with mean μ and unknown population standard deviation σ and calculate the t -score t = $\frac{\overline{x}–\mu }{\left(\frac{s}{\sqrt{n}}\right)}$ , then the t -scores follow a Student's t-distribution with n – 1 degrees of freedom . The t -score has the same interpretation as the z -score . It measures how far $\overline{x}$ is from its mean μ . For each sample size n , there is a different Student's t-distribution.

The degrees of freedom , n – 1 , come from the calculation of the sample standard deviation s . In [link] , we used n deviations $\left(x–\overline{x}\text{values}\right)$ to calculate s . Because the sum of the deviations is zero, we can find the last deviation once we know the other n – 1 deviations. The other n – 1 deviations can change or vary freely. We call the number n – 1 the degrees of freedom (df).

## Properties of the student's t-distribution

• The graph for the Student's t-distribution is similar to the standard normal curve.
• The mean for the Student's t-distribution is zero and the distribution is symmetric about zero.
• The Student's t-distribution has more probability in its tails than the standard normal distribution because the spread of the t-distribution is greater than the spread of the standard normal. So the graph of the Student's t-distribution will be thicker in the tails and shorter in the center than the graph of the standard normal distribution.
• The exact shape of the Student's t-distribution depends on the degrees of freedom. As the degrees of freedom increases, the graph of Student's t-distribution becomes more like the graph of the standard normal distribution.
• The underlying population of individual observations is assumed to be normally distributed with unknown population mean μ and unknown population standard deviation σ . The size of the underlying population is generally not relevant unless it is very small. If it is bell shaped (normal) then the assumption is met and doesn't need discussion. Random sampling is assumed, but that is a completely separate assumption from normality.

find the mean of 2, 3 , 4,7
...
Alex
4
Hafi
2+3+4+7/4=16/4=4
solomane
2+3+4+7=16/4=4
Delanie
2+3+4+7 =16 16÷4 =4
Louise
(2+3+4+7)/4=4
Alex
4
Raja
two dice thrown find probability that the sum is equal to 8
5/36
Mushfek
show me the process how find the answer
kasim
(3,5)(5,3)(2,6)(6,2)(4,4)=5/6×6=5/36
solomane
first of you find all the possible outcomes of throwing 2 dice
solomane
uhmmm
Umar
interesting
Umar
what is ch-square test
what is ch-square test
Luka
￼The chi-square distribution can be used to find relationships between two things, like grocery prices at different stores.
Raja
a test to compare two proportions
Thanh
give some examples of regression calculations
Luka
Uttam
How can I calculate the Class Mark, Relative frequency and the cumulative frequency on a frequency table?
what is the important in business planning and economics
explain the limitation and scope of statistics
mahelt
statistics is limited to use where data can be measured quantitatively. statistics scope is wider such as in economic planning, medical science etc.
Gurpreet
can you send me mcq type questions
Yas
Umar
which books are best to learn applied statistics for data science/ML
Gurpreet
A population consists of five numbers 2,3,6,8,11.consists all possible samples of size two which can be drawn with replacement from this population. calculate the S.E of sample means
A particular train reaches the destination in time in 75 per cent of the times.A person travels 5 times in that train.Find probability that he will reach the destination in time, for all the 5 times.
0.237
Amresh
umesh
p(x=5)= 5C0 p^5 q^0 solve this
Amresh
umesh
ok
umesh
5C0=1 p^5= (3/4)^5 q^0=(1/4)^0
Amresh
Hint(0.75 in time and 0.25 not in time)
kamugi
what is standard deviation?
It is the measure of the variation of certain values from the Mean (Center) of a frequency distribution of sample values for a particular Variable.
Dominic
what is the number of x
10
Elicia
Javed Arif
Jawed
how will you know if a group of data set is a sample or population
population is the whole set and the sample is the subset of population.
umair
if the data set is drawn out of a larger set it is a sample and if it is itself the whole complete set it can be treated as population.
Bhavika
hello everyone if I have the data set which contains measurements of each part during 10 years, may I say that it's the population or it's still a sample because it doesn't contain my measurements in the future? thanks
Alexander
Pls I hv a problem on t test is there anyone who can help?
Peggy
Dominic
Bhavika is right
Dominic
what is the problem peggy?
Bhavika
hi
Sandeep
Hello
hi
Bhavika
hii Bhavika
Dar
Hi eny population has a special definition. if that data set had all of characteristics of definition, that is population. otherwise that is a sample
Hoshyar
three coins are tossed. find the probability of no head
three coins are tossed consecutively or what ?
umair
umair
or .125 is the probability of getting no head when 3 coins are tossed
umair
🤣🤣🤣
Simone
what is two tailed test
if the diameter will be greater than 3 cm then the bullet will not fit in the barrel of the gun so you are bothered for both the sides.
umair
in this test you are worried on both the ends
umair
lets say you are designing a bullet for thw gun od diameter equals 3cm.if the diameter of the bullet is less than 3 cm then you wont be able to shoot it
umair
In order to apply weddles rule for numerical integration what is minimum number of ordinates
excuse me?
Gabriel
why?
didn't understand the question though.
Gabriel
which question? ?
We have rules of numerical integration like Trapezoidal rule, Simpson's 1/3 and 3/8 rules, Boole's rule and Weddle rule for n =1,2,3,4 and 6 but for n=5?
John
Someone should help me please, how can I calculate the Class Mark, Relative frequency and the cumulative frequency on a frequency table?
IJOGI