Standard deviation

How it is used

Abbreviated SD and normally reported next to the mean in text and tables. It is the square root of the variance. Do not confuse it with the standard error (SE), which describes how precise an estimate of the mean is.

Example sentences

1. Scores ranged from 12 to 48, with a mean of 31.2 and a standard deviation of 6.5.

2. Table 2 shows the means and standard deviations for each group.

Common collocations

• mean and standard deviation
• one standard deviation above the mean
• large standard deviation
• report the SD

Related terms

• meanThe average value of a set of numbers, found by adding them together and dividing the total by how many numbers there are.
• descriptive statisticsNumbers and tables that summarize the main features of a dataset, such as frequencies, percentages, means, ranges and standard deviations.
• dataFacts, numbers, recordings, texts or observations collected in a study and then analyzed to answer a research question.
• quantitativeDescribing research that collects numerical data and uses statistics to measure, compare or test relationships, often with larger samples.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

• standard deviation · Software Engineering
• standard deviation · Data Science & Analytics
• standard deviation · Industrial Engineering & Manufacturing
• standard deviation · Statistics

More terms: Data and Analysis

• findings
• analysis
• significant
• draw a conclusion
• correlation
• thematic analysis
• account for
• interpret
• dataset
• p-value
• coding
• trend