Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Standard
Deviation
So
far
we’ve
been
talking
about
measures
of
Central
Tendency:
mean,
median,
and
mode.
Central
tendency
will
provide
a
quick
glimpse
of
the
data
in
terms
of
where
the
middle
number
is,
which
number
occurs
the
most,
and
what
is
the
average
of
all
the
numbers.
Central
tendency
provides
great
information
that
can
be
used
for
relations
and
comparisons.
The
average
can
be
used
to
tell
how
well
did
one
student
do
compared
to
the
class
average?
Mode
can
be
used
to
tell
you
which
test
number
most
of
the
students
missed?
Yet,
it
doesn’t
provide
a
complete
picture
of
the
data,
for
example
the
mean
and
median
can
be
the
same.
Does
that
mean
the
data
set
is
the
same?
No.
Once
we
have
a
data
set,
we
can
analyze
it
in
many
different
ways.
We
want
to
now
look
at
Measures
of
Variance.
Variance
will
tell
you
how
spread
out
your
data
set
is
in
relation
to
the
mean.
Do
you
have
a
standard
distribution?
Normal
curve?
What?
Why
is
that
important?
What
is
Standard
Deviation?
Let’s
start
with
what
is
a
standard
deviation.
From
Wikipedia,
“It
shows
how
much
variation
or
"dispersion"
there
is
from
the
average
(mean,
or
expected
value).
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.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation
A
very
high
SD
usually
means
that
your
data
are
too
variable
and
therefore
are
unreliable.
Best
part
of
the
assignment,
we
can
use
the
Standard
Deviation
function
in
Excel
to
do
all
the
calculations
for
us.
Review
the
screencast
on
how:
http://www.screencast.com/t/B4soGICZaLXz
Here’s
some
more
information
and
background
for
Standard
Deviation
before
the
class
assignment:
• Nova
Southeastern’s
site
Review
of
Standard
Deviation:
http://www.schoolofed.nova.edu/edl/secure/stats/lesson2.htm
• Understanding
Standard
Deviation:
http://causeandeffectblog.com/?p=102
Assignment:
Use
the
data
set
provided,
ISAT
4th
Grade,
to:
1. Calculate
the
Measures
of
Central
Tendency
for
each
content
area
2. Calculate
the
Highest
number
and
the
Lowest
number
for
each
content
area
3. Calculate
the
Standard
Deviation
for
each
content
area
4. Post
your
spreadsheet
to
the
Discussion
Board
and
answer
the
following
question:
What
is
the
Standard
Deviation
of
Earth
Sciences?
What
does
that
score
represent?