Statistical Sciences 2244A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Statistical Parameter, Random Variable, Binomial Distribution

• School: Western University
• Department: Statistical Sciences
• Course: Statistical Sciences 2244A/B
• Professor: Jennifer Waugh

Document Summary

Distribution: value a variable takes and how often it takes these values. o. Categorical variable - this lists the categories and gives either the count of percent of individuals belonging to each category. Discrete random variable: countable list of possible outcomes. Possible values for x are whole numbers from 0 to n. Binomial distributions are important class of probability distributions (distribution of a random variable x that tells us what values x can take and how to assign probabilities to those values). Two outcomes: success (category of interest) or failure. P(success) = p is constant for all n trials. Binomial distributions in stats help us make inferences about the proportion p of successes in a population. Population portion: the fraction of the population having the characteristic of interest. If each individual is equally likely to be sampled: o. P(randomly selected individual with characteristic of interest) = population proportion having characteristic of interest. o.