Marco enjoys playing hockey in his spare time. In his past 6 seasons, the number of goals he has scored each season is as follows:

Question

[16,19,17,24,21,17]

a) What is the sample standard deviation?

Answer 1

Step 1: Find the sample mean.

(16 + 19 + 17 + 24 + 21 + 17)/6 = 19

Step 2: Find the difference between each number and the sample mean, and square it.

(16 - 19)^2 = 9

(19 - 19)^2 = 0

(17 - 19)^2 = 4

(24 - 19)^2 = 25

(21 - 19)^2 = 4

(17 - 19)^2 = 4

Step 3: Sum all of the numbers from step 2 together

9 + 0 + 4 + 25 + 4 + 4 = 46

Step 4: Divide the number from Step 3 by the number of observations minus 1

46/(6-1) = 9.2

Step 5: Take the square root of the number from Step 4

sqrt(9.2) = 3.03315

And that's the answer.