Sample Variance
Definition
Sample variance is a measure of how spread out the data points are in a sample. It quantifies the average squared deviation from the mean.
Analogy
Imagine you have a group of friends who all have different heights. The sample variance would be like measuring how much each person's height deviates from the average height, and then squaring those deviations to emphasize larger differences.
Related terms
Population Variance: Population variance is similar to sample variance but calculates the spread of data for an entire population rather than just a sample.
Standard Deviation: Standard deviation is another measure of dispersion that represents the square root of variance. It provides a more interpretable value since it is in the same units as the original data.
Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD): MAD measures dispersion by taking the average absolute difference between each data point and the mean, providing an alternative to squared deviations used in variance.
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