Question

Two high school basketball players each played 5 games. Their stats are summarized below:

Player A: Stats on 5 games → mean points scored = 25, standard deviation = 4
Player B: Scored 23, 27, 28, 22, 25 points on 5 consecutive games

Suppose a university basketball scout (a person who finds new players for a university's team) is deciding which player to recruit. Who should they choose? Justify your response. [3 marks]

HINT: Compare mean and variance of each player.

Answer 1

Player B.

Explanation:

Player A has a mean score of 25.

Let's calculate Player B's mean score and compare it to Player A's.

23 + 27 + 28 + 22 + 25 / 5 = 125 / 5 = 25.

So, Player A and Player B have the same mean score.

This doesn't tell the scout which player is "better", so let's look at the variance.

The other statistic given for Player A is the standard deviation for their points. The given number is 4. Let’s calculate the standard deviation for Player B, and compare it to player A.

Recall that we add up the squares of the difference between each score and the mean, divide it by the total number of data, and square root that. So, the standard deviation for player B is sqrt(2^2 + 2^2 + 3^2 + 3^2 + 0^2 / 5) = sqrt (26/5) = sqrt (5.2) = 2.3.

Excellent. We have player A’s standard deviation, as well as player B’s standard of deviation. Since player B’s standard deviation is less than player A’s, it can be inferred that player B has more consistent results than player A, and the scout should get Player B.

Hope this helps!