# Sample Standard Deviation Calculator

Instructions: In order to use this sample standard deviation calculator (SD), please provide the sample data below and this solver will provide step-by-step calculation:

Type the sample (comma or space separated)
Name of the variable (Optional)

The sample standard deviation (usually abbreviated as SD or St. Dev. or simply $$s$$) is one of the most commonly used measures of dispersion, that is used to summarize the data into one numerical value that expresses our disperse the distribution is. When we say "disperse", we mean how far are the values of distribution relative to the center.

Let $$\{X_1, X_2, ..., X_n\}$$ be the sample data. The following formula is used to compute the sample standard deviation:

$s = \sqrt{\frac{1}{n-1}\sum_{i=1}^n (X_i-\bar X)}$

Observe that the formula above requires to compute the sample mean first, before starting the calculation of the sample standard deviation, which could be inconvenient if you only want to compute the standard deviation. There is an alternative formula that does not use the mean, which is shown below: $s = \sqrt{\frac{1}{n-1}\left( \sum_{i=1}^n X_i^2 - \frac{1}{n} \left(\sum_{i=1}^n X_i\right)^2 \right)}$

Example: For example, assume that the sample data is $$\{ 1, 2, 5, 8, 10\}$$, then, the sample SD is computed as follows:

$s = \sqrt{\frac{1}{n-1}\left( \sum_{i=1}^n X_i^2 - \frac{1}{n} \left(\sum_{i=1}^n X_i\right)^2 \right)}$ $= \sqrt{\frac{1}{5-1}\left( 1^2+2^2+5^2+8^2+10^2 - \frac{1}{5} (1+2+5+8+10 )^2 \right)} = 3.8341$

The sample standard deviation is typically used as a representative measure of the dispersion of the distribution. But, the problem with the sample st. dev. is that it is sensitive to extreme values and outliers. If what you need is to compute all the basic descriptive measures, including sample mean, variance, standard deviation, median, and quartiles please check this complete descriptive statistics calculator.

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