BIONOMIAL PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION

The Binomial probability distribution is a discrete probability distribution that has many
applications. It is associated with multiple-step experiment that we call the binomial
experiment.

Properties of a Binomial Experiment

For a probability experiment to be classified as a binomial experiment, it must have the
following four properties.

1. The experiment consists of a sequence of n identical trails.

2. Two outcomes are possible on each trial. We refer to one outcome as a success and
the other as a failure.

3. The probability of success denoted by p , does not change from trial to trial.
Consequently the probability of failure, detonated by 1  p does not change from trial
to trail. Also there are two possible outcomes on each trial. Also since there are only
two possible outcomes on each trial, the probability of success plus the probability of
a failure must equal to 1.

4. The trials are independent.

If properties 2, 3, and 4 are present we say the trials are generated by a Bernoulli process. If,
in addition, property 1 is present, we say we have a binomial experiment. The example below
depicts one possible sequence of outcomes of a binomial experiment involving 8 trials.
Property 1 and 2 are illustrated.

Property 1: The experiment consists of n  8 identical trials.

Property 2: Each trails results in either success (S) or failure (F)

Trails  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Outcomes  S F F S S F S S

In a binomial experiment, our interest is in the number of success occurring in the n trials, we
see that x denote the number of successes occurring in the n trails, we see that x can assume
the values of 0, 1, 2, 3,….. n . Since the number of values is finite, x is a discrete random
variable.

The probability distribution associated with this random variable is called binomial
probability distribution. For an example, consider the experiment of tossing a coin 5 times
and on each toss observing whether the coin lands with a head or a tail on each upward face.
Suppose we are interested in counting the number of heads appearing during the 5 tosses.
Does this experiment have the properties of a binomial experiment? What is the random
variable of interest? Note that:

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 1. The experiment consist of five identical trials, where each trial involves the tossing of
one coin.
2. There are two outcomes possible for each trial. The possible outcomes are head and a
tail. We can designate head as success and tail as failure.
3. The probability of a head and the probability of a tail are the same for each with
p  0.5 and 1  p  0.5
4. The trials or tosses are independent, since the outcome on any one trail is not affected
by what happens on other trial or tosses.

Thus the properties of a binomial experiment are satisfied. The random variable of interest is
x  the number of heads appearing in the 5 trials. In this case, x can assume the values of 0,
1,2,3,4 or 5.

One is often interested in a situation where every member of a population can be classified as
either having or not having a certain characteristic, eg. whether each person living in a village
has had malaria or not; whether each book in a library was published in USA or not.
Statistically, one would be mainly interested in the proportion of population members with
the characteristic or without it, rather than the attributes of individual population members.
Very often, however, it would be too difficult or expensive to collect data for every member
of the population and one has to rely on data from a sample in order to gain some idea about
the value of the population proportion.
This, then, is what is known as a Binomial situation: where every unit in a population can be
classified as either having or not having a certain characteristic (the corresponding
proportions being denoted by P and Q respectively); a simple random sample of size n is
drawn from the population; and the number of units in the sample having the characteristic
(denoted by x) is determined. In this situation one may estimate the population proportion,
P, by the corresponding sample proportion, p (calculated as x/n).
However, in order to know how accurate this estimate is and to test hypotheses about the
population proportion, one needs to know the probability distribution of x, ie. what is the
probability of a sample having any particular number of units with the characteristic of
interest.
For simplicity, one often refers to a case where a population unit has the characteristic of
interest as a “success” and to a case where it does not as a “failure”. However, these terms
are not meant literally, eg. having malaria is not really a “success”.

Factorials and combinatorials

In order to calculate the required probabilities, we need to use factorials, which are defined as
follows.
If n is a positive integer (i.e. a positive whole number), n factorial, or factorial n, is denoted
by n! and is defined as the product of all the numbers from 1 to n inclusive. Also, it is
convenient to define 0! as being equal to 1.
Example 1: 5! = 5*4*3*2*1 = 120
Notice that a factorial product may be expanded and evaluated in various ways.

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Example 2: 7! = 7*6*5*4*3*2*1 but it may be calculated as
7*6*5! = 7*6*120 = 7*720 = 5,040 and so on.
In sampling theory we sometimes need to use combinatorials, which are defined as follows.
If a sample of n objects is drawn from a population of N objects without replacement, the
number of different samples that can be drawn, without regard to the order in which the
objects appear in the sample, equals N!/n!(N - n)!. This expression is known as a
combinatorial coefficient and is often denoted by the symbol  N.
n
 
Binomial probabilities
It can be shown that, in a binomial situation, where P is the probability of success each time a
population unit is selected into a simple random sample,

 n  x n -x 
 P Q
Pr[ x successes in a sample of size n ] =  x  for x = 0, 1, 2, 3, …., n and Q = 1 – P

In this context the combinatorial coefficient is known as the binomial coefficient.

Example 3:If 40 percent of the members of a population have had malaria and one draws a
simple random sample of 10 persons, construct the probability distribution for x, the
number of persons in the sample who have had malaria. Illustrate the distribution

10!0.4 0.6
0 10
Pr[ x  0 ]   (0.6)10  0.01
0!10!

10!0.4 0.6
1 9
10 * 9!(0.4)1 (0.6) 9
Pr[ x  1 ]    10(0.4)1 (0.6) 9  0.04
1!9! 1!9!
with a probability polygon.
10!0.4 0.6
2 8
10 * 9 * 8!(0.4) 2 (0.6) 8
Pr[ x  2 ]    45(0.4) 2 (0.6) 8  0.12
2!8! 2!8!

10!0.4 0.6
3 7
10 * 9 * 8 * 7!(0.4) 3 (0.6) 7
Pr[ x  3 ]    120(0.4) 3 (0.6) 7  0.21
3!7! 3!7!
In a similar way, one can calculate the probability for every possible value of x (from 0 to 10)
and hence construct the probability distribution, as follows. Alternatively, one may use the
BINOMDIST function in Excel.

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 x Pr[ x successes ]
0 0.01
1 0.04 Binomial distribution (P = 0.4; n = 10)
2 0.12
3 0.21
4 0.25
5 0.20
6 0.11
7 0.04
-1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
8 0.01
9 0.00 x
10 0.00
Total 1.00

It is often more convenient to work with the probability distribution of p, rather than x. It is a
simple matter to obtain the required distribution. If x = x0, then p = p0 = x0/n, so
Pr[ p = p0 ] = Pr[ x / n = x0 / n ] = Pr[ x = x0 ]
Thus the p-distribution has the same probabilities as the x-distribution; its probability
polygon is the same as the polygon for x, except for the labelling of the axis.
Example 3: Construct the probability distribution of p for the data of the previous example
and draw the corresponding probability polygon.
When x = 1, p = 1/10 = 0.1, so Pr[ p = 0.1 ] = Pr[ x = 1 ] = 0.04
When x = 2, p = 2/10 = 0.2, so Pr[ p = 0.2 ] = Pr[ x = 2 ] = 0.12
In a similar way, one can determine the probability for every possible value of p (from 0.0 to
1.0) and hence construct the probability distribution, as follows.

Mean and standard deviation

For later calculations relating to hypothesis testing, it is necessary to know the mean and
standard deviation of the binomial distribution, so we will state them here.
For x, the mean of the distribution is X  nP and the standard deviation is S x  nPQ
.

PQ
For p, the mean of the distribution is P and the standard deviation is Sp.
n

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