STDEV.P Function in Excel – Uses, and Examples

The STDEV.P Function in excel is one of the most useful statistical functions in excel. It is used for the whole population. Let us see how the function works.

What is STDEV.P Function in Excel?

STDEV.P Function is used to get the value of standard deviation for the entire range of the population. By standard deviation, we mean how much the set of values differs from the mean value.

The STDEV.P Function can calculate the deviations in revenue. It can also help us make the custom error bars to plot the value of the standard deviation on the chart.

infographics STDEV.P Function Excel

How does the Function work?

The STDEV.P Function uses the following formula to get the value of standard deviation.

standard deviation of population

Where the following symbols indicate:-

  • xi – It refers to the actual values whose standard deviation we want to find.
  • ͞μ This is the population mean.
  • N – This is the total number of values in our data.
  • s – This is the actual value of the standard deviation

Syntax and Arguments

The following is the syntax for STDEV.P Function –

=STDEV.P(number1,[number2]…………….)

Where we have got the explanation of the arguments:-

  • number1 – This can be a value of a range of values whose standard deviation we want to find. It could be either any number, cell reference, or range of cells.
  • [number2] – This is an optional argument.

There can be a total of 255 such arguments out of which only the first one is mandatory to specify.

Important Points about STDEV.P Function

The following points are must to know about the STDEV.P Function before getting into the actual usage.

  • The arguments must supply at least two numbers to the function.
  • The Function returns a #DIV!0 error if the arguments supplied to it do not contain any numerical value. Numbers in the form of text format would not be counted as numbers.
  • STDEV.P ignores the text and logical values (TRUE and FALSE)
  • Use the STDEV.S function to calculate the Standard Deviation of a sample.

Example 1 for using STDEV.P Function

Let us suppose we have the business monthly sales figured out for the last five years as follows:-

example stdev.p function in excel raw data

We can calculate the standard deviation by using the following formula:-

=STDEV.P(C2:C13,E2:E13,G2:G13,I2:I13,K2:K13)
using the stdev.p function in excel

As a result, the formula returns the standard variation for all the sales as 277.29.

Explanation – we have supplied four ranges as the number1, number2, number3 and number4

The range C2:C13 contains the monthly sales for 2015, E2:E13 contains 2016, G2:G13 contains 2017, I2:I13 contains 2018 and K2:K13 contains sales for 2019.

The function calculates the standard deviation by using the formula the backend and returns the result.

This brings us to the end of the blog.

Thank you for reading.

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