Question

For the following data set, you are interested to determine the "spread" of the data. Would you employ calculations for the sample standard deviation, or population standard deviation for this data set: You are interested in the heights of students at a particular middle school. Your data set represents the heights of all students in the middle school with 600 students.

Answer 1

Answer: Use calculations for population standard deviation.

Step-by-step explanation:

The population standard deviation is defined as

• a parameter which is a fixed value
• evaluated by considering individual in the population.

A sample standard deviation is defined as

• a statistic ( whose value is not fixed ).
• Evaluated from a subset (sample) of population.

Since, data set represents the heights of all students in the middle school with 600 students which is population here.

So, we do calculations to find population standard deviation.