What is the standard deviation of {7, 2, 4, 6, 8, 11}?

1 Answer
Alan P.
May 4, 2016

Assuming we are looking for the population standard deviation #~~2.88#

Explanation:

The arithmetic steps required:

  1. Find sum of values
  2. Find mean (arithmetic average)
  3. Find deviation from mean for each value (value minus the mean)
  4. Find square of deviation from mean for each value
  5. Find the sum of the squares of the deviations
  6. Find the average of the sum of the squares of the deviations (this is the population variance)
  7. Find the square root of the average of the sum of the squares of the deviations (this is the population standard deviation)

This could be done manually or in a spreadsheet:

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In actual practice most scientific calculators will have a function for calculation of the standard deviation, or, if you are using a spreadsheet, a builtin function (in Excel its STDEVP)

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