Statistics: SD: Measure of Spread

Objectives

• Students will identify the standard deviation as a measure of spread about the mean of a distribution.
• Students will recognize that the size of the standard deviation depends on the spread of the distribution.

Vocabulary

• deviation
• dot plot
• mean
• range
• standard deviation

About the Lesson

This lesson is intended as an introductory activity to the concept of standard deviation.
As a result, students will:

• Manipulate a dot plot to obtain specified standard deviations.
• Examine different distributions with the same mean and range and note how the standard deviation changes.
• Gain a basic understanding of what standard deviation is measuring and how changes in data values affect the standard deviation.