Random Sampling Mean

Overview


The standard estimate of the sample mean is given by the population average.
{% \bar{x} = \frac{1}{n} \sum_{i=1}^n x_i %}
The estimate is unbiased.

Standard Error


The standard error is defined as
{% SE = \frac{\sigma}{\sqrt{n}} %}
where {% \sigma %} is standard deviation of the distribution and n is the sample size. The standard error gives the standard deviation of the estimated value of the mean. Typically, the standard deviation of the sampling distribution is unknown, in which case, the sample standard deviation is used instead, and the standard error becomes an approximation of the standard deviation of the sample mean.