Standard deviation

[Svi]

I have a datasheet with data of more than 30 people. I want to calculate the
standard deviation, but the Help function of Excel tells me that Stdev is
used for a group of max 30 persons. What function should I use to calculate
the standard deviation for a group of more than 30 people?

J.A. van Iwaarden

 

[Mike H]

Hi,

What help means is that you can only pass 30 arguments to stdev for example:-

=stdev(a1,a2,a3-------A30) is OK
=stdev(a1,a2,a3-------A50) isn't OK
but this

=STDEV(A1:A100)

calculates the standard deviation for 100 cells and only counts as a single
argument.


Mike

 

[Gary''s Student]

I have good news for you!

The limit of 30 only refers to the number of individual arguments.
Something like:

=STDEV(A1:A500) will work just fine.

 

[Roger Govier]

Hi

The limitation of 30, is to 30 sets of data, not 30 individuals.
Supposing you have numbers in A1:A50
=STD(A1:A50) will produce the standard deviation of those 50 values.

You could have =STD(A1:A50,B20:B90,C10, etc ....)
The 30 refers to the number of entries between the commas.

 

[David Biddulph]

STDEV can take up to 30 separate arguments. If you have a contiguous range
(such as A1:C99), than counts as one argument.

 

[Svi]

OK. That's clear.

Thanks

J.A. van Iwaarden