STA 205 Sampling Distribution of a Proportion Herman

Simulating Sampling Distribution

Applets – Sampling distributions; Binary p = 0.4; Compute

Sample Size – change to 10; 1 time at the top. This creates a graph as well as “Prop of 1s” which is like your proportion of black. Note
that this is the sample proportion. Let’s label this number below:

Now hit “Reset” above; Now we will click 5 times. Notice how it takes those 5 sample proportions and plots it on the graph at the bottom.
In addition, it creates some summary statistics such as the mean, median, and standard deviation. Let’s record these below:

Now hit “Reset” above and we will click 1000 times. Now we have a plot at the bottom with many more data points and also still have the
mean, median, and standard deviation.

We will now do the same thing with a sample of 20; we will jump straight to doing 1000 times. Record the mean, median, and standard
deviation below.

What do you think will happen when we change the sample to 50? How, if at all, will this affect the mean, median, and standard
deviation?

What did happen?

1
STA 205 Sampling Distribution of a Proportion Herman

Please note that if you do this yourself another time (which would be good to do), you will get slightly different numbers each time!

Extending the ideas of the applet

Recall:

_____ represents the population proportion.

_____ represents the sample proportion

As we saw in the activity that statistics (here sample proportions) that we get can be different based upon who our sample is made up of.
However, it is actually quite easy to predict how much we can expect these sample proportions to vary.

From the activity, this is what we should have noticed:

Definition: A ______________________________________ allows us to model how a statistic (a numerical summary of a

What does this really mean? Why do I need to care?

2
STA 205 Sampling Distribution of a Proportion Herman

Sampling Distribution of a Sample Proportion

Note: q = 1 – p

Example: What does that mean for our example where we sampled 50 beads when p = 0.40?

Now when does this model hold (conditions)?

3
STA 205 Sampling Distribution of a Proportion Herman

And once we know the Normal model holds, we can use the properties that we learned. For example, the Normal Curve Rule (68-95-99.7).

Let’s apply this to the video output where we had a p of 0.40 and n = 50

4
STA 205 Sampling Distribution of a Proportion Herman

Let’s look at what is different if p was still 0.40 but n =100.

How would this affect the sampling distribution?

How does this impact the 68-95-99.7% rule?

5
STA 205 Sampling Distribution of a Proportion Herman

So, what would be the probability that if I took a sample of 100 beads that the percentage of black would be greater than 30.2%?

What if instead we wanted to find the probability that the percentage of black is less than 46%?

6
STA 205 Sampling Distribution of a Proportion Herman

So, just as before, we need to convert to a Z in order to go to the Z table. How do we do this?

Before Now

Z= Z=

So, let’s complete our example….

7
STA 205 Sampling Distribution of a Proportion Herman

Example 1: Between May 1 and July 25, 2021, 71.4% of all COVID infections of Los Angeles County, California residents were in
unvaccinated individuals. Suppose that this value is still true today. We decide to take a random sample of 30 residents who tested
positive for COVID in LA County for each of 20 testing centers.

What would be the sampling distribution? (Be sure to check conditions)

What would be expected using the Normal Curve Rule? Fully interpret as well.

8
STA 205 Sampling Distribution of a Proportion Herman

What would be the probability that between 70% and 75% of the sampled COVID cases were from unvaccinated residents?

What would be the probability that at least 453 of the sampled COVID cases were from unvaccinated residents?

After taking the sample, we found that 453 of the sampled COVID cases were from unvaccinated residents. What would this mean
to us? Do we still believe that 71.4% of the LA county COVID cases are from unvaccinated residents or do we think it is actually
higher? Why?

9
STA 205 Sampling Distribution of a Proportion Herman

Example 2: Suppose I tell you that about 14% of all of my STA 205 students receive a D or F in the course. You then decided to take a
stratified sample by selecting 18 students from each of 17 sections of STA 205 that I have taught.

a. Who is the population? b. What variable is recorded? Is it quantitative or categorical?

c. How was the sample selected? d. What would be the sampling distribution (check conditions!)?

e. What would be the probability at least 47 of those sampled received a D or F in the course?

f. Suppose that you found that 47 of the students sampled received a D or F in the course. What does that mean? Do you still
believe me when I say that 14% of students get a D or F in the course?

10