Normal Distributions and the Scientific Method

Learning outcomes

After working through this module you should be able to:

  • Outline the three steps that describe good scientific procedure.
  • Name the parameters that describe a normal distribution and explain how the distribution of a variable changes in response to changes of these parameters
  • Indicate where the middle 68%, 95% and 99% of a normal distribution lies relative to the mean of the distribution.
  • Indicate how the values of the mean and standard deviation of one normal distribution need to change in order to increase or decrease the overlap it has with a second normal distribution.

Module contents

1: The Scientific Method
2: What makes a Good Procedure?
3: Normal Fish
4: More about normal distributions
5: Visualising a normal distribution
6: Testing Fish2Whale
7: Exploring the Fish2Whale Distribution
8: Overlapping Distributions
9: Summary: The End for now...