What is Standard Deviation?
Standard deviation is a statistic that measures how spread out a set of data is from its mean. In simpler terms, it tells you how much variation there is within a dataset. A low standard deviation indicates that the data points are clustered close to the mean, while a high standard deviation indicates that the data points are more spread out.
Here's an example to illustrate:
Imagine you have a set of test scores: 70, 80, 85, 90, 95. The mean score is 84. In this case, the standard deviation is relatively low, around 8. This means that most of the scores are close to the average score.
On the other hand, if you have a different set of scores: 40, 50, 80, 90, 100. The mean score is still 74, but the standard deviation is much higher, around 22. This means that the scores are more spread out, with some scores being much lower than the average and others being much higher.
![Standard deviation example 1] ![Standard deviation example 2]
Standard deviation is a useful tool for understanding the variability of data. It can be used in many different fields, such as finance, economics, psychology, and education.
