Question

Jacob was researching the number of hours the average adult sleeps each night. He collected data from five individuals:

Subject Hours of Sleep
Subject 1 6
Subject 2 6.5
Subject 3 6
Subject 4 7.5
Subject 5 5
Using the data above, what is the standard error of the sample mean?
a) 0.15.b) 0.74.c) 6.10.d) 0.41.

Answer 1

0.41

Explanation:

Given the data:

Subject Hours of Sleep

Subject 1 6

Subject 2 6.5

Subject 3 6

Subject 4 7.5

Subject 5 5

The standard error of the sample mean :(S. E) is given by standard deviation / square root of sample size.

To calculate the standard deviation :

Using the formula :

Sample size = n = 5

Sqrt(Σ(X - mean)^2 / n - 1)

This can be obtained faster using a calculator :

Hence, using calculator the standard deviation of the sample is 0.90829

Hence,

Standard Error = 0.90829 / sqrt(5)

Standard Error = 0.90829 / 2.2360679

Standard Error = 0.4061996