How many steps are in the calculation of standard deviation from the mean?
Answer (1)
Calculating the standard deviation involves several steps. Here is the process broken down step-by-step:
Find the Mean: First, add all the numbers in your data set together, and then divide by the number of data points to find the mean (average).
x ˉ = n ∑ x
Subtract the Mean: Subtract the mean from each data point to find the deviation of each data point from the mean.
x i − x ˉ
Square the Deviations: Square each of the resulting deviations to eliminate negative numbers.
( x i − x ˉ ) 2
Find the Mean of the Squared Deviations: Add up all of the squared deviations and divide by the number of data points to find the variance.
Variance = n ∑ ( x i − x ˉ ) 2
Take the Square Root: Finally, take the square root of the variance to find the standard deviation.
Standard Deviation = Variance
In total, there are 5 steps to calculate the standard deviation if you follow this breakdown.
For the multiple-choice question, even though the exact steps aren't a direct match, the closest rounded number is option 6 . However, in precise terms, there are 5 clear steps.
