Standard Deviation Visually Represented in a Dotplot
- Author:
- Forest Fisher
- Topic:
- Means, Standard Deviation
Move the dots around in the dotplot below and see how it affects the mean, median, and standard deviation.
What happens if you move the orange dot to 17? How does this affect the standard deviation?
What happens if you move the purple dot to 9? What if you move it to 1?
Highlight all of the dots and drag them 5 spaces to the left? How does this change the mean? How does it change the standard deviation? Why does it affect one statistic but not the other?
Dragging the dots around, create a sample with the smallest possible standard deviation. How small were you able to make the standard deviation? How did you accomplish this?
How big could you make the standard deviation if the minimum value in the sample is 0 and the maximum is 21? Explain.