ESSENTIAL STATISTICS 2E

William Navidi and Barry Monk

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 The Central Limit Theorem for
Proportions
Section 6.3

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 Objectives
1. Construct the sampling distribution for a sample proportion
2. Use the Central Limit Theorem to compute probabilities for
sample proportions

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 Objective 1
Construct the sampling distribution for a
sample proportion

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 Sample and Population Proportion
In a population, the proportion who have a certain characteristic is
called the population proportion. The population proportion is denoted
by .
In a simple random sample of individuals, let be the number in the

sample who have the characteristic. The sample proportion is = .

Example:
A computer retailer wants to estimate the proportion of people in her
city who own laptop computers. She cannot survey everyone in the city,
so she draws a sample of 100 people and surveys them. It turns out that
35 out of the 100 people in the sample own laptops.
35
The sample proportion is = .
100
The proportion of people in the entire city who own laptops is the
population proportion, .

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 Sampling Distribution of
If several samples are drawn from a population, they are likely to
have different values for . Because the value of varies each time a
sample is drawn, is a random variable, and it has a probability
distribution.

The probability distribution of is called the sampling distribution of

.

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 An Example of a Sampling Distribution
Consider tossing a fair coin five times. This produces a sample of size
= 5, where each item in the sample is either a head or a tail. The
proportion of times the coin lands on heads is the sample proportion
. The probability that it lands heads each time is 0.5. Therefore, the
population proportion of heads is = 0.5. Next, we look at all 32
possible samples that can be constructed.

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 An Example of a Sampling Distribution (Continued)
The table displays all possible samples of size 5 and their sample
proportion .
The mean of all of values of is = 0.5 and the standard
deviation of all values of is = 0.2236.

Next, we compare these

values to the population
proportion (0.5) and the
sample size (5).

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 Mean and Standard Deviation of a Sampling Distribution
In the previous table, the mean of the sampling distribution is = 0.5,
which is the same as the population proportion, = 0.5. This relation always
holds.
The mean of the sampling distribution of is denoted by and equals the
population proportion:
=
The standard deviation of the sampling distribution is = 0.2236. It is not
immediately obvious how this is related to the population proportion and
0.5 10.5 1
the sample size . Note, however, that = 0.2236 = =
5
is denoted by ,
The standard deviation of the sampling distribution of
is:

=

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 Example: Sampling Distribution
The soft-drink cups at a certain fast-food restaurant have tickets
attached to them. Customers peel off the tickets to see whether they
win a prize. The proportion of tickets that are winners is = 0.25. A
total of = 70 people purchase soft drinks between noon and 1:00 PM
on a certain day. Let be the proportion that win a prize. Find the
mean and standard deviation of .
Solution:
The population proportion is = 0.25 and the sample size is = 70.

The mean of is:

= = 0.25
The standard deviation of is:
1 0.25 10.25
= = = 0.0518.
70
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 Probability Histogram for a Sampling Distribution
The probability histogram for the sampling distribution
of for the proportion of heads in five tosses of a fair
coin is presented. We can see that the distribution is
reasonably well approximated by a normal curve.
The experiment is conducted again but with 50 tosses
of a fair coin. As we increased the number of tosses, the
sampling distribution of is more closely approximated
by a normal curve.

When = 0.5, the sampling distribution of is somewhat close to normal

even for a small sample size like = 5. When is close to 0 or close to 1, a
larger sample size is needed before the distribution of is close to normal.

A common rule of thumb is that the distribution may be approximated with

a normal curve whenever and ( ) are both at least 10.

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 Central Limit Theorem for Proportions
be the sample proportion for a sample of size from a
Let
population with population proportion .

is
If and , then the distribution of
approximately normal, with mean = and standard deviation

= .

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 Example 1: The Central Limit Theorem
A sample of size 20 is drawn from a population with
population proportion = 0.7. Is it appropriate to use
the normal distribution to find probabilities for ?

Solution:
No. = 20 0.7 = 14 and 1 = 20 0.3 = 6.
Since (1 ) is not at least 10, we cannot be certain
that the distribution of is approximately normal.

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 Example 2: The Central Limit Theorem
A sample of size 55 is drawn from a population with
population proportion = 0.8. Is it appropriate to use the
normal distribution to find probabilities for ?

Solution:
Yes, since = 55 0.8 = 44 and 1 = 55 0.2
= 11 are both at least 10, the distribution of is
approximately normal.

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 Objective 2
Use the Central Limit Theorem to compute
probabilities for sample proportions

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 Example 1: Using the Central Limit Theorem
According to a recent Harris poll, chocolate is the favorite ice cream flavor for
27% of Americans. If a sample of 100 Americans is taken, what is the
probability that the sample proportion of those who prefer chocolate is
greater than 0.30?

Solution:
We first check the assumptions.
= 100(0.27) = 27 10
1 = 100 1 0.27 = 73 10
We may use the normal curve.
We compute and
1 0.27 10.27
= = 0.27 and = = = 0.044396
100
Find the area under the normal curve.
The probability that the sample proportion of those who prefer chocolate is
greater than 0.30 is 0.2496.
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 Example 2: Using the Central Limit Theorem
In the 2012 U.S. presidential election, 51% of voters voted for Barack Obama.
If a sample of 75 voters were polled, would it be unusual if less than 40% of
them had voted for Barack Obama?
Solution:
We first check the assumptions.
= 75(0.51) = 38.25 10
1 = 75 1 0.51 = 36.75 10
We may use the normal curve.
We compute and
1 0.51 10.51
= = 0.51 and = = = 0.057723
75
Find the area under the normal curve.
The probability that the sample proportion of those who voted for Barack
Obama is less than 0.40 is 0.0283. It would be unusual for the sample
proportion to be less than 0.40.
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 You Should Know . . .
The notation for sample and population
proportions
How to construct the sampling distribution for a
sample proportion
How to find the mean and standard deviation of
the sampling distribution of
How to use the Central Limit Theorem for
Proportions to compute probabilities for sample
proportions

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