{"id":6418,"date":"2014-11-17T19:39:31","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T19:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/?p=6418"},"modified":"2014-11-17T19:39:31","modified_gmt":"2014-11-17T19:39:31","slug":"statistics-the-normal-distribution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/statistics-the-normal-distribution\/","title":{"rendered":"Statistics: the normal distribution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tutoring statistics, you help students who, in many cases, are facing completely new ideas (to them).\u00a0 The tutor continues his goal of explaining statistics from a “day-to-day” point of view.<\/h1>\n

In an introductory stats course – which is probably as far as most people ever need to take it – probability is often the first topic.\u00a0 You might continue with it for a few weeks even, without hearing of the normal distribution.\u00a0 However, the normal distribution will almost always turn out to be the main focus of the course.<\/p>\n

The normal distribution is the “bell curve” some people refer to.\u00a0 Any large population follows it; therefore, the normal distribution is very useful in big business and for government.\u00a0 People who are studying stats towards a professional career (rather than just for academic reasons) get schooled in the normal distribution because of its practical application.<\/p>\n

A population that follows the normal distribution (virtually all do) is called a normal population.\u00a0 Such a population follows some predictable traits which are very useful to know:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \nThe mean cuts the population exactly in half:\u00a0 50% lies below it, the other 50% above.<\/li>\n
  2. 68% of the population lies within one standard deviation of the mean. For example: if the mean is 100 and the standard deviation is 20, 68% of the population lies between 80 and 120.<\/li>\n
  3. 95% of the population lies within two standard deviations of the mean. To follow along with the population mentioned above, 95% of it will lie between 60 and 140.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I’ll be continuing with implications of the facts above – as well as more attributes of the normal distribution – in coming posts. Cheers.<\/p>\n

    Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane,<\/a> Campbell River, BC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Tutoring statistics, you help students who, in many cases, are facing completely new ideas (to them).\u00a0 The tutor continues his goal of explaining statistics from a “day-to-day” point of view. In an introductory stats course – which is probably as …<\/p>\n

    Statistics: the normal distribution<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[285,292],"class_list":["post-6418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-statistics","tag-introductory-statistics","tag-normal-distribution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6418"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6429,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6418\/revisions\/6429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}