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Standard deviation is basically how much your scores vary from the mean or average score. So if you have a mean of 5 and a standard deviation of 2 it indicates that most of your values are around 5, and if they are not they will usually be +/- 2 units different (between 3 and 7). If you have a large standard deviation it simply means that your data includes a wide range of values. In some cases it may mean that you have an outlier, or an error in your data, in other cases it is normal depending on what you are measuring.

For example if you are taking a sample of peoples ages and you get a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 20 that would be normal because you can expect ages to range from 0-100. But if you are measuring shoe size and you get a mean of 8 and a standard deviation of 6 you can expect that something is wrong with your data because not many people have size 2 or size 14 shoes.

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Q: What does a large standard deviation signify?
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What does large standard deviation signify?

That there is quite a large amount of variation between the observations.


Is the standard deviation best thought of as the distance from the mean?

No. A small standard deviation with a large mean will yield points further from the mean than a large standard deviation of a small mean. Standard deviation is best thought of as spread or dispersion.


What a large standard deviation means?

A large standard deviation means that the data were spread out. It is relative whether or not you consider a standard deviation to be "large" or not, but a larger standard deviation always means that the data is more spread out than a smaller one. For example, if the mean was 60, and the standard deviation was 1, then this is a small standard deviation. The data is not spread out and a score of 74 or 43 would be highly unlikely, almost impossible. However, if the mean was 60 and the standard deviation was 20, then this would be a large standard deviation. The data is spread out more and a score of 74 or 43 wouldn't be odd or unusual at all.


In research how to define standard deviation?

Standard deviation shows how much variation there is from the "average" (mean). A low standard deviation indicates that the data points tend to be very close to the mean, whereas high standard deviation indicates that the data are spread out over a large range of values.


How is standard deviation different from mean absolute decation?

If I have understood the question correctly, despite your challenging spelling, the standard deviation is the square root of the average of the squared deviations while the mean absolute deviation is the average of the deviation. One consequence of this difference is that a large deviation affects the standard deviation more than it affects the mean absolute deviation.


What is percentile deviation?

A standard deviation in statistics is the amount at which a large number of given values in a set might deviate from the average. A percentile deviation represents this deviation as a percentage of the range.


What are the assumptions of standard deviation?

The standard deviation is the standard deviation! Its calculation requires no assumption.


Can standard deviation be calculated for non normal data?

Standard deviation can be calculated using non-normal data, but isn't advised. You'll get abnormal results as the data isn't properly sorted, and the standard deviation will have a large window of accuracy.


What does it means if the standard deviation is large?

that you have a large variance in the population and/or your sample size is too small


What does the sample standard deviation best estimate?

The standard deviation of the population. the standard deviation of the population.


What does small standard deviation signify?

A small standard deviation indicates that the data points in a dataset are close to the mean or average value. This suggests that the data is less spread out and more consistent, with less variability among the values. A small standard deviation may indicate that the data points are clustered around the mean.


What combination of factors will produce the smallest value for the standard error?

A small sample and a large standard deviation