Ekene was curious if sample range was an unbiased estimator of population range. She placed ping pong balls numbered from 0 to 32 in a drum and mixed them well. Note that the range of the population is 32.
She then took a random sample of 5 balls and calculated the range of the sample. She replaced the balls and
repeated this process for a total of 50 trials. Her results are summarized in the dotplot below, where each dot
represents the sample range from a sample of 5 balls.
.
ea
8
12
16
20
24
28
32
Sample range
Based on these results, does sample range appear to be a biased or unbiased estimator of population range?
Hint: The population range is 32.
Choose 1
Sample range appears to be a biased estimator since it consistently underestimated the population