Abstract:

Virtual labs are a tool of great potential for the transmission of scientific knowledge. In the context of university education today , these tools are of special importance given the possibilities self-learning offered to students.

The study of probability theory is becoming increasingly important in many fields of engineering, biology, physics, medicine, economics, ... It is because of the interesting applications to solving real problems. In this work, we present a virtual laboratory for teaching purposes developed as a graphical user interface (GUI) of Matlab. The designed tool allows to obtain graphically and numerically information related to the most important continuous probability distributions: normal, exponential, Beta, Snedecor's F, Gamma, Student's-t,chi-squared, Weibull, continuous uniform and log-normal.

The main objective is that students acquire skills and knowledge to manage different probability distributions obtained without using tables. They will be able to graphically interpret the results and to apply it to solving problems.The virtual laboratory, given its ease of use, also allows to help users to select the distribution that best fits to the available data. This virtual laboratory is a valuable pedagogical tool for the understanding these important concepts of probability theory.

Keywords:

Continuous probability distribution, Density function, Virtual laboratory, Matlab.