What is a t-distribution?
What is a t-distribution?
The t-distribution is a type of normal distribution that is used for smaller sample sizes. Normally-distributed data form a bell shape when plotted on a graph, with more observations near the mean and fewer observations in the tails.
The t-distribution is used when data are approximately normally distributed, which means the data follow a bell shape but the population variance is unknown. The variance in a t-distribution is estimated based on the degrees of freedom of the data set (total number of observations minus 1).
It is a more conservative form of the standard normal distribution, also known as the z-distribution. This means that it gives a lower probability to the center and a higher probability to the tails than the standard normal distribution.
