How far from average?

Introduction to Statistics in Google Sheets

Ted Kwartler

Data Dude

All aboard!

First stop, Variance Station

• Measures how dispersed a dataset is
• Smaller variance indicates a dataset is less spread
• Large differences between data points increase the variance

First stop, Variance Station

A
347
347
347
347

First stop, Variance Station

A
347
347
347
347

• Column A Variance: 0

First stop, Variance Station

A	B
347	10
347	14
347	10
347	10

• Column A Variance: 0

First stop, Variance Station

A	B
347	10
347	14
347	10
347	10

• Column A Variance: 0
• Column B Variance: 3

First stop, Variance Station

A	B	C
347	10	10
347	14	14
347	10	100
347	10	10

• Column A Variance: 0
• Column B Variance: 3

First stop, Variance Station

A	B	C
347	10	10
347	14	14
347	10	100
347	10	10

• Column A Variance: 0
• Column B Variance: 3
• Column C Variance: 1476.75

Calculating Variance: Step 1

Calculating Variance: Step 2

Calculating Variance: Step 3

Calculating Variance: Step 4

Calculating variance in spreadsheets

Pulling into, Standard Deviation!

Standard Deviation

Manual Standard Deviation:

Google Sheets Standard Deviation:

Standard Deviation as a unit of measure

Sample average & standard deviation

=AVERAGE(10,14,10,10) = 11

=STDEVP(10,14,10,10) = 1.73

New Data Point: 12.73

12.73 - 1.73 = 11

Last distribution stop on the stats train: quartiles

• Percentile: % of values below a specific point
• 50th percentile: Splits the data evenly
• Here, 0 is the 50th percentile

Let's practice!

Introduction to Statistics in Google Sheets