- #1
TheOldHag
- 44
- 3
I have a set of scored items with the scores in the interval [0,1]. Roughly speaking the distribution of scores is about 50% equal to 0 and then sloping steeply downward all the way toward one or near to one. I want to fit this data to a distribution and use that down the road in some calculation but I'm not sure how to proceed.
My guess is that since the data lay in the interval [0,1] it can be modeled as a beta distribution. So now I need to find the parameters alpha and beta. Is it easy as calculating the sample mean and the sample variance and working backwards from the equations for the mean and variance of a beta distribution or does that only work for normal distributions? Since these are sample do they approximate a normal distribution so that I should be fitting a normal distribution to the data despite the interval [0,1] (it would have very thin tails)? Comments appreciated.
My guess is that since the data lay in the interval [0,1] it can be modeled as a beta distribution. So now I need to find the parameters alpha and beta. Is it easy as calculating the sample mean and the sample variance and working backwards from the equations for the mean and variance of a beta distribution or does that only work for normal distributions? Since these are sample do they approximate a normal distribution so that I should be fitting a normal distribution to the data despite the interval [0,1] (it would have very thin tails)? Comments appreciated.