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  • perhaps mostly because it is most widely taught measure in undergraduate courses, and even in many graduate-level courses in statistics and inference
  • it has an easily understood interpretation in terms of normal populations
  • I suspect that many people find the mathematical operators involved in calculating it more familiar than those involved in calculing measures of spread based on L1 or other metrics
  • statistical theory (and computer software) for ANOVA and other analogues of standard deviation has been much easier to create than that for L1 or other metrics
  • there are classical results for the moments of distributions that do not involve absolute value or similar discontinuous functions
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Q: Why is the standard deviation the most preferred measure of spread?
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What is standard deviation used for?

Standard deviation is a measure of the spread of data.


Why does the standard deviation get smaller as the individual in a group score more similarly on a test?

Because the standard deviation is a measure of the spread in scores. As individuals score more similarly, the spread gets smaller. Because the standard deviation is a measure of the spread in scores. As individuals score more similarly, the spread gets smaller. Because the standard deviation is a measure of the spread in scores. As individuals score more similarly, the spread gets smaller. Because the standard deviation is a measure of the spread in scores. As individuals score more similarly, the spread gets smaller.


Why do we need the standard deviation?

The standard deviation is a measure of the spread of data.


What does standard deviation tell about distribution and varity?

It is a measure of the spread of the distribution. The greater the standard deviation the more variety there is in the observations.


How do you use standard deviation?

Standard deviation is a measure of how spread out a set of numbers are from each other. It has a variety of uses in statistics.


What is the minimum data required for standard deviation?

The standard deviation is a measure of how spread out the numbers are. Three points is needed to calculate a statistically valid meaningful standard deviation.


What do the variance and the standard deviation measure?

They are measures of the spread of distributions about their mean.


What is the standard deviation?

The standard deviation of a set of data is a measure of the spread of the observations. It is the square root of the mean squared deviations from the mean of the data.


Why you measure standard deviation?

The idea is to know how much the values "spread out" from the average.


What is standard deviation in psychology?

Standard deviation is a statistical measure. It may be used in psychology but is not restricted to that subject. It is a measure of the spread of the distribution of values of some attribute that is being measured.


Which measure would you use to fine the spread of marks in an examination?

The measure commonly used to find the spread of marks in an examination is the standard deviation. It provides a numerical value that indicates how spread out the scores are from the mean score. A larger standard deviation suggests a wider spread of scores, while a smaller standard deviation indicates a more clustered distribution of scores.


What does the standard deviation tell us?

standard deviation is the square roots of variance, a measure of spread or variability of data . it is given by (variance)^1/2