Describing Distribution Shape

Introduction And Definitions Page 3

(Speaker)

Calculating the mean is one way to get a measure of the center of the distribution. The formulas for the mean of a population and the mean of a sample are as follows.

The population mean, μ (mu), is equal to the sum of all x_i, divided by N, where x_i is the i^th observation, and N is the population size.

The sample mean, x (x-bar), is equal to the sum of all x_i, divided by n, where x_i is the i^th observation, and n is the sample size.

In each formula, we add the values of each data point in the distribution, and divide the sum of the values by the total number of values.