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x i represents every value in the data set.σ (“sigma”) is the symbol for standard deviation.The standard deviation formula looks like this: This is where the standard deviation is important. Two data sets could have the same average value but could be entirely different in terms of how those values are distributed. Without it, you wouldn’t be able to easily and effectively dive into data sets.

However, a large standard deviation means that the values are further away from the mean. Standard deviation is a helpful way to measure how “spread out” values in a data set are.īut how do you interpret a standard deviation?Ī small standard deviation means that most of the numbers are close to the mean (average) value.