The STDEVP function calculates the standard deviation of a population based on the whole of the population as supplied by list.
The standard deviation is a measure of the dispersal of data from the mean value. The formula used by STDEVP is:
SQRT(VARP(list))
STDEVP assumes that its arguments are the whole of a population, so use STD if you wish to estimate the standard deviation based on a sample.
For example, if you wish to calculate the standard deviation of the times, in seconds, for the members of a 4 x 400m running team, use the formula
STDEVP(55, 57, 56, 59)
which returns 1.479 seconds.
See also: