PYB110 Study Guide - Final Guide: Normal Distribution, Point Estimation, Standard Score

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We know that any one sample will not tell us the mean of the population from which it was taken because it can change with every sample taken. Therefore we must also accept that different random samples will not all have the same mean. Since we almost always use samples to represent populations, we want to minimise sampling error and variability as much as possible. The simplest way to minimise error is to collect as much data from the population as possible. This is really common sense the larger the sample size, the less likely it will be unrepresentative of the population from which it came. The mean of the distribution of means is the same as the population mean from which the sample is taken. The variance of the distribution of means can be calculated: M is the variance of the distribution of means : N is the number of scores in each sample.