Suppose that you have a distribution involving a continuous random variable x. Discuss how one would obtain a distribution of sample means for this continuous random variable x. Cast this discussion within the context of an original real-world example (e.g., IQ scores). Discuss how the mean of this distribution of sample means can be used to make informed decisions regarding the population mean. Discuss how the standard deviation of this distribution of sample means can be used to make informed decisions regarding the population standard deviation. As sample size increases, discuss how the shape of the distribution of sample means changes as well as the influence over the mean and standard deviation of this distribution.

Definition Definition Measure of central tendency that is the average of a given data set. The mean value is evaluated as the quotient of the sum of all observations by the sample size. The mean, in contrast to a median, is affected by extreme values. Very large or very small values can distract the mean from the center of the data. Arithmetic mean: The most common type of mean is the arithmetic mean. It is evaluated using the formula: μ = 1 N ∑ i = 1 N x i Other types of means are the geometric mean, logarithmic mean, and harmonic mean. Geometric mean: The nth root of the product of n observations from a data set is defined as the geometric mean of the set: G = x 1 x 2 ... x n n Logarithmic mean: The difference of the natural logarithms of the two numbers, divided by the difference between the numbers is the logarithmic mean of the two numbers. The logarithmic mean is used particularly in heat transfer and mass transfer. ln x 2 − ln x 1 x 2 − x 1 Harmonic mean: The inverse of the arithmetic mean of the inverses of all the numbers in a data set is the harmonic mean of the data. 1 1 x 1 + 1 x 2 + ...