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Population Mean and Sample Mean
The arithmetic mean is the average of a group of numbers and is computed by summing all numbers and dividing by the number of numbers. The arithmetic mean is also usually just called the mean.
A population is a collection of persons, objects or items of interest.
A sample is a portion of the whole and, if properly taken, is representative of the whole.
The population mean is represented by the Greek letter mu . It is given by the formula
The capital Greek letter sigma is commonly used in mathematics to represent a summation of all the numbers in a grouping.
N is the number of terms in the population.
The sample mean is represented by . It is given by the formula
n is the number of terms in the sample.
The following video highlights the difference between the mean of a sample and the mean of a population.
(Errata – the formulas were given as xn when they should have been xi)
Describes the calculations for the sample and population means.
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