Question

The average body temperature of all healthy adults is 98.6 F. A doctor takes a random sample of 100 healthy adults and records the temperature of each. The average temperature of these 100 adults is 98.2 F and the standard deviation is 6.9 F. Identify the values of the statistic and the parameter(s).

Answer 1

Explained below.

Explanation:

A parameter is a valuable element of statistical analysis. It denotes the characteristics that are used to define a given population. It is used to define a particular attribute of the population. For instance, population mean, population standard deviation, population proportion and so on.

• The parameter of interest is the average body temperature of all healthy adults, μ = 98.6°F.

While making a statistical conclusion about the population under study, the parameter value is unknown. This is because it would not be possible to gather data from every single member of the population. So a sample is selected from the population to derive a conclusion about the parameter.

A statistic is the value of the characteristics that are computed using this sample. For instance, sample mean, sample standard deviation, sample proportion and so on.

• The statistic is the average body temperature of 100 randoly selected healthy adults,
  `\bar x=98.2^(o)F`.