Question

How can you use standard deviations to compare the spread of each data set?
Sample A: 2,5,1,2,3,3,4,3
Sample b: 10,5,1,2,3,7,4,3

Answer 1

Calculate the standard deviation for each data set:

Sample A = 1.246

Sample B = 2.924

The smaller the deviation the closer the data set is, the larger the deviation the more widespread the data set is.

Sample B has a larger deviation so the spread of the data is wider.