Bias and Variability Preview CT-STEM

Bias vs. Variability

This is just a page to put together your understanding of bias and variability. A lot of times students say "more biased" when they really mean "less variable", so this is a pretty important thing to nail down!

Questions

Please answer the questions below.

Question 5.1

On pages 2-3 you learned about bias. On page 4 you learned about variability. Explain the difference between bias and variability in a way that a freshman could understand. You are welcome to use your book and the internet for more definitions and illustrations (I think your book has a really useful graphic on page 481).

Question 5.2

Ideally, we want the variation in our sampling distribution to be as _______ as possible.

Question 5.3

Two graduate students are studying the effects of a new cancer drug. Student A took a sample of size 10 from the population, while student B took a sample of size 30. Whose results will be more precise? Why? What do we mean by 'precise'?

Notes

These notes will appear on every page in this lesson so feel free to put anything here you'd like to keep track of.