Education Technology

SA and NT: How Long - Sampling Distributions

by Texas Instruments

Vocabulary

  • Random,
  • Mean,
  • Sampling and Sampling Distribution,
  • Standard deviation and Variance

About the Lesson

A program is used to generate a graphical representation of the problem: Two points are randomly placed inside a 1cm x 1cm square, how far apart would you expect the points to be? The program can also generate single samples of a nominated size or multiple samples and the corresponding sampling distribution for the mean. The visual nature of the problem combined with the questions and simulations provides for an intuitive understanding of the relationship between the size of each sample and the standard deviation of the sampling distribution. The precise relationship is not used, instead the activity focuses on the concept, including an informal approach to the central limit theorem.