First of all, an example; mean age of the children in a test is 12.93, with a standard deviation of .76.
Now, maybe I am just over thinking this, but everything I Google gives me this big convoluted explanation of what standard deviation is without addressing the kiddy pool I’m standing in.
Edit: you guys have been fantastic! This has all helped tremendously, if I could hug you all I would.
In: Mathematics
I’ll try my best, with example similar to the top comment because it’s probably the easiest to understand. I just want to add some things that may make it easier to understand.
A is 5 years old and B is 30 years old. The average of the age of both A and B is (5 + 30)/2 = 17.5
C is 17 years old and D is 18 years old. The average of the age of both C and D is (17 + 18)/2 = 17.5
If you look at it, A and B, and C and D have the same average, but it doesn’t really tell you much about their actual age. This is where standard deviation may help you. Standard deviation is basically the range between the average and the data you want to see (in this case, the age of A B C D).
Standard deviation for C and D is 0.5. Where did 0.5 come from? 0.5 is the difference between the age of C or D and the average of C and D.
I made a graph that could help:
The same is also applied to A and B. The standard deviation of A and B is 12.5, meaning that there is 12.5 difference between age A or B with the average of A and B. A graph that could help:
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