As the sample size n increases, the standard deviation of the sampling distribution

The central limit theorem states that the sampling distribution of the mean approaches a normal distribution, as the sample size increases. This fact holds especially true for sample sizes over 30.

Therefore, as a sample size increases, the sample mean and standard deviation will be closer in value to the population mean μ and standard deviation σ .

The central limit theorem tells us that no matter what the distribution of the population is, the shape of the sampling distribution will approach normality as the sample size (N) increases.

This is useful, as the research never knows which mean in the sampling distribution is the same as the population mean, but by selecting many random samples from a population the sample means will cluster together, allowing the research to make a very good estimate of the population mean.

Thus, as the sample size (N) increases the sampling error will decrease.

• As the sample size increases, the distribution of frequencies approximates a bell-shaped curved (i.e. normal distribution curve).

• Sample size equal to or greater than 30 are required for the central limit theorem to hold true.

• A sufficiently large sample can predict the parameters of a population such as the mean and standard deviation.

How to reference this article:

How to reference this article:

McLeod, S. A. (2019, Nov 25). What is central limit theorem in statistics? Simply psychology: https://www.simplypsychology.org/central-limit-theorem.html

How to reference this article:

How to reference this article:

McLeod, S. A. (2019, November 25). What is central limit theorem in statistics? Simply Psychology. www.simplypsychology.org/central-limit-theorem.html

Example: Mean NFL Salary

The built-in dataset "NFL Contracts (2015 in millions)" was used to construct the two sampling distributions below. In the first, a sample size of 10 was used. In the second, a sample size of 100 was used.

Sample size of 10:

200Show Data TableGenerate 100 Samples Choose samples of size n =samples = 5000mean = 2.195std. error = 0.936Generate 10 SamplesGenerate 1 SampleLeft TailTw o - TailRight TailNFL Contr acts (2015 in millions)Sampling Dotplot of MeanEdit DataUpload File Change ColuReset Plot10150 100500122.1953456789Generate 100 0 Samples

Sample size of 100:

120Show Data TableGenerate 100 SamplesChoose samples of size n =samples = 5000mean = 2.236std. error = 0.296Generate 10 SamplesGenerate 1 SampleLeft TailTwo - TailRight TailNFL Contracts (2015 in millions)Sampling Dotplot of MeanEdit D ataUpload FileChange ColuReset Plot1001008060402001.501.752.002.252.502.753.003.25Generate 1000 Samples2.236

With a sample size of 10, the standard error of the mean was 0.936. With a sample size of 100 the standard error of the mean was 0.296. When the sample size increased the standard error decreased.

Also know that the population was strongly skewed to the right. With the smaller sample size, the sampling distribution was also skewed to the right, though not as strongly skewed as the population. With the larger sample size, the sampling distribution was approximately normal.

As the sample size n increases, the standard deviation of the sampling distribution decreases.

As the sample size n increases, the standard deviation of the sampling distribution

As the sample size n increases, the standard deviation of the sampling distribution

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    What happens to the standard deviation when the sample size increases?

    Thus as the sample size increases, the standard deviation of the means decreases; and as the sample size decreases, the standard deviation of the sample means increases.

    What happens to the sampling distribution when the sample size n increases?

    In other words, as the sample size increases, the variability of sampling distribution decreases. Also, as the sample size increases the shape of the sampling distribution becomes more similar to a normal distribution regardless of the shape of the population.

    What happens to the standard deviation of the sampling distribution as the sample size n decreases?

    Since the sample size n appears in the denominator of the square root, the standard deviation does decrease as sample size increases. Finally, the shape of the distribution of p-hat will be approximately normal as long as the sample size n is large enough.