Variance and Standard Deviation
In this module, you will learn how to quantify the spread of the dataset by calculating the variance and standard deviation.
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Variance
Interpretation of Variance
Calculating Variance in Python
Standard Deviation
Standard Deviation Units
Calculating Standard Deviation in Python
Variance
Variance
Variance is a measure of spread. It is calculated by finding the average of the squared differences between every observation and the mean. The resulting value is in units squared.
Variance
Lesson 1 of 2
- 2Now that you have learned the importance of describing the spread of a dataset, let’s figure out how to mathematically compute this number. How would you attempt to capture the spread of the data …
- 3We now have five different values that describe how far away each point is from the mean. That seems to be a good start in describing the spread of the data. But the whole point of calculating vari…
- 4We’re almost there! We have one small problem with our equation. Consider this very small dataset: [-5, 5] The mean of this dataset is 0, so when we find the difference between each point and the…
- 5Well done! You’ve calculated the variance of a data set. The full equation for the variance is as follows: \sigma^2 = \frac{\sum_{i=1}^{N}{(X_i -\mu)^2}}{N} Let’s dissect this equation a bit. * …
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