The University of Zambia

School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Student Name: Kelvin Kauluka

Course: DEV 9350: ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE

Lecturer:

First Assignment 5

Discuss the idea behind Areas Under the Standard Normal Curve within the context of the
normal distribution philosophy
There are various components which come into play in decision making. Though not the only
aspects, there is the research, the hypothesis, and hypothesis testing. All statistical results come
are an integral part of the interpretation process in order to the decision making. When one is
testing the hypothesis, a cornerstone to decision making, the analysis of the data is the
probability. It is the author’s opinion, that the best way to describe probability is with the
questing beginning with “how likely.” There various way to describe the statistics, including a
normal curve, bell curve, central limit theorem, and z-scores which will be discussed below. This
paper discuss the idea behind Areas under the Standard Normal Curve within the context of the
normal distribution philosophy.

The area under the normal distribution curve represents probability and the total area under the
curve sums to one. Most of the continuous data values in a normal distribution tend to cluster
around the mean, and the further a value is from the mean, the less likely it is to occur. The tails
are asymptotic, which means that they approach but never quite meet the horizon that is x-axis.
For a perfectly normal distribution the mean, median and mode will be the same value, visually
represented by the peak of the curve. The normal distribution is often called the bell curve
because the graph of its probability density looks like a bell (Keppel and Wickens, 2004). It is
also known as called Gaussian distribution, after the German mathematician Carl Gauss who first
described it.

The normal curve represents the shape of an important class of statistical probabilities. The
normal curve is used to characterize complex constructs containing continuous random variables.
Many phenomena observed in nature have been found to follow a normal distribution. Some
human attributes such as height, weight, intelligence, and even social skills can be said to be
normally distributed. For example, most people’s height clusters around the population mean,
and an equally small proportion of people, are represented at either extreme end of the
distribution. When represented graphically, the resulting shape resembles that of a bell where
there is a single peak at the mean, while the tails extend to the right and left into infinity.

When talking about the normal distribution philosophy, it's useful to think of the standard
deviation as being steps away from the mean. One step to the right or one step to the left is
considered one standard deviation away from the mean. Two steps to the left or two steps to the
right are considered two standard deviations away from the mean. Likewise, three steps to the
left or three steps to the right are considered three standard deviations from the mean. The
standard deviation of a dataset is simply the number in other words the distance that constitutes a
complete step away from the mean (Aron etal, 2008). Adding or subtracting the standard
deviation from the mean tells us the scores that constitute a complete step. Below I've put
together a distribution with a mean of 58 and a standard deviation of 5. For example, if I add the
standard deviation to the mean, I would get a score of 63 (58 + 5 = 63). In stats terminology, we
would say that a score of 63 falls exactly "one standard deviation above the mean." Similarly, we
could subtract the standard deviation from the mean (58 – 5 = 53) to find the score that falls one
standard deviation below the mean.

The idea behind Areas under the Standard Normal Curve normal curve is that it is a very useful
curve in statistics because many attributes, when a large number of measurements are taken, are
approximately distributed in this pattern-bell shaped. For example, the distribution of the
wingspans of a large colony of butterflies, of the errors made in repeatedly measuring a 1
kilogram weight and of the amount of sleep you get per night are approximately normal. Many
human characteristics, such as height, IQ or examination scores of a large number of people,
follow the normal distribution.

In addition, the central limit theorem is an important part in statistics as it essentially says that if
the sample size is large enough, the sampling distribution of the mean for a variable, both
independent and random, will be normal. Therefore, the central limit theorem (CLT), along with
the law of large numbers (LLN), are known as two fundamental results in probability theory and
statistical analysis. In many instances researchers, or in the author’s case, in the homeland
security community, we are dealing more commonly with big data. According to Campbell e tal,
(2007), the idea of collecting more data is better as it is supported by the idea that the statistical
power is improved by increasing the sample size. Essentially, so long as the sample size is large
enough, a normal distribution will occur. Even if it is unknown the shape of the distribution
where the data comes from, it is the implication with the central limit theorem that the sampling
distribution is normal. The central limit theorem gives the researcher the confidence that
statistical tools will function meaningfully in sample research. According to Altman (2000), the
central limit theorem is vital to modern statistics. Without the central limit theorem, parametric
tests based on sample data of a population with fixed parameters determining its probability
distribution would not exist (Campbell e tal, 2007). The central limit theorem can assist
researchers when analyzing data.

The histogram of the sample data is an estimate of the population distribution of birth weights in
new born babies. This population distribution can be estimated by the superimposed smooth
`bell-shaped' curve or `Normal' distribution shown. We presume that if we were able to look at
the entire population of new born babies then the distribution of birth weight would have exactly
the Normal shape. We often infer, from a sample whose histogram has the approximate Normal
shape, that the population will have exactly, or as near as makes no practical difference, that
Normal shape. The Normal distribution is completely described by two parameters μ and σ,
where μ represents the population mean, or center of the distribution, and σ the population
standard deviation. It is symmetrically distributed around the mean. Populations with small
values of the standard deviation σ have a distribution concentrated close to the center μ; those
with large standard deviation have a distribution widely spread along the measurement axis. One
mathematical property of the Normal distribution is that exactly 95% of the distribution lies
between.

As with any probability distribution, the parameters for the normal distribution define its shape
and probabilities entirely. The normal distribution has two parameters, the mean and standard
deviation. The normal distribution does not have just one form. Instead, the shape changes based
on the parameter values. With regard to the mean, the mean is the central tendency of the
distribution. It defines the location of the peak for normal distributions. Most values cluster
around the mean. On a graph, changing the mean shifts the entire curve left or right on the X-axis
while the standard deviation is a measure of variability. It defines the width of the normal
distribution. The standard deviation determines how far away from the mean the values tend to
fall. It represents the typical distance between the observations and the average (O'Cathain,
2002). It can be mentioned that the normal distribution is a probability distribution. As with any
probability distribution, the proportion of the area that falls under the curve between two points
on a probability distribution plot indicates the probability that a value will fall within that
interval.

In addition to all of the above, there are several other reasons with regard to the areas Under the
Standard Normal Curve within the context of the normal distribution philosophy and it’s
crucially in statistics. This is because some statistical hypothesis tests assume that the data follow
a normal distribution (Melchart, 2005). However, as I explain in my post about parametric and
nonparametric tests, there’s more to it than only whether the data are normally distributed. Also,
linear and nonlinear regression both assume that the residuals follow a normal distribution. Learn
more in my post about assessing residual plots. Furth more, the central limit theorem states that
as the sample size increases, the sampling distribution of the mean follows a normal distribution
even when the underlying distribution of the original variable is non-normal.

In addition to the above, the areas under the normal curve have so far been interpreted as nothing
more than areas. As Wight e tal (2004) puts it, depending on how the normal distribution is used,
there are several possible interpretations of these areas. They may be simply areas, or they may
be interpreted as proportions, percentages, probabilities, or even numbers people. A short
discussion of these interpretations follows.

The areas-under the curve, this requires little further discussion because this is how the normal
curve has been interpreted so far. The total area under the whole curve is 1, and each pair of Z
values denotes an area under the curve. These are simply areas under the curve, or fractions of
the total area under the curve. With regard to Proposition, if a population has a standardized
normal distribution, the areas under the curve also correspond to proportions. That is, each pair
of Z values denotes a range of values of the variable. The area under the curve between these two
Z values is the proportion of the population which takes on values within this range. Like for
example, suppose that the distribution represents the distribution of a variable in a population.
The total area of 1 under the whole curve is equivalent to accounting for the whole population.
That is, the sum of all the proportions in a proportional distribution is 1. Aron e tal (2008) ads
that the proportion of the population between the limits of Z = 0:5 and Z = 2:65 is equal to the
area within these limits, and this was shown to be 0.3045. Thus 0.3045 of the population is
between Z = 0:5 and Z = 2:65. On the part of percentages. If the proportions are multiplied by
100%, the proportions become percentages. Similarly, the areas multiplied by 100% become
percentages of the population within the respective limits. As in the last paragraph, the
percentage of the population between Z = 0:5 and Z = 2:65 is 30.45%, if the population has a
standardized normal distribution. Also note that in Example 6.4.4 the middle 95% of the area
was associated with the range from Z = ¡1:96 to Z = 1:96. The middle 95% of cases in a
standardized normal population is within these limits (Gregory, 2004). The idea behind the area
under the curve can also be explained in terms of probabilities. The areas or proportions can also
be interpreted as probabilities.

If a case is randomly selected from a standardized normal population, then the probability of its
being between two specific Z values is the same as the area between these Z values. Example
6.4.4 shows that 90% of the area under the normal curve is between Z = ¡1:645 and Z = +1:645.
As a probability, this could be interpreted as saying that the probability that Z is between ¡1:645
and +1:645 is 0.90.

The idea behind Areas under the Standard Normal Curve distributions are important due to
Chebyshev's Theorem, which states that for a normal distribution a given standard deviation
above and/or below the mean will always account for the same amount of area under the curve
(Keppel and Wickens, 2004). To clearly explain this, lets depict a picture of a bell shaped graph
which has the shaded area beneath representing the total area that falls between one standard
deviation above and one standard deviation below the mean. Those Greek letters normally
written are just statistical notation for the mean and the standard deviation of a population.
Regardless of what a normal distribution looks like or how big or small the standard deviation is,
approximately 68 percent of the observations or 68 percent of the area under the curve will
always fall within two standard deviations (one above and one below) of the mean. A question
can be posed, can one guess what proportion falls between the mean and just one standard
deviation above it? If one guessed 34, you must be familiar with division (.68/2 = .34).
Therefore, it can be noted that the normal distribution is a symmetrical, bell-shaped distribution
in which the mean, median and mode are all equal. It is a central component of inferential
statistics and that the standard normal distribution is a normal distribution represented in z
scores. It always has a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one.

In conclusion, this assignment has discussed the idea behind the area under the Standard Normal
Curve within the context of the normal distribution philosophy. Among the pointed out points
are that the probability distribution is a function that describes the likelihood of obtaining the
possible values that a random variable can assume. In other words, the values of the variable
vary based on the underlying probability distribution. It can be understood from the discussion
above that the normal distribution can be used to describe the distribution in actual populations.
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