The symbol for the population standard deviation is σ (sigma).
The population standard deviation is a measure of the spread of data points in an entire population, as opposed to a sample taken from that population. It quantifies how much the individual data points deviate from the population mean. It is calculated as the square root of the population variance.
Here's a breakdown:
- Population: The entire group you are interested in studying.
- Standard Deviation: A measure of the amount of variation or dispersion in a set of data values. A low standard deviation indicates that the data points tend to be close to the mean (also called the expected value) of the set, while a high standard deviation indicates that the data points are spread out over a wider range of values.
- σ (Sigma): The Greek letter sigma is universally used to represent the population standard deviation.
It's important to distinguish this from the sample standard deviation, which uses a different formula and is usually denoted by the symbol 's'. The sample standard deviation estimates the population standard deviation based on a sample of the population.
