The pop parameter

What it does

TRUE = use population formulas, FALSE = use sample formulas

Metrics affected include:

variance, stdDev, std, weight, cv, relativeDispersion, zScores, skewness, kurtosis

STATS_CI, the t-tests and ANOVA always use the sample standard deviation (n − 1), as SPSS.

Values

Required; default FALSE.

Should be TRUE or FALSE

In plain words

A class of 5 students scored 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10. With pop FALSE, the usual setting, the standard deviation came out 3.16. This treats the 5 students as a few picked from a bigger group, like all students in the town. With pop TRUE it came out 2.83. This treats these 5 as everyone she cares about. Now she can pick the one that fits her story. The confidence interval and the tests that compare averages always use the first way, whatever is set here, just as SPSS does.

Where you use it

• STATS_DESCRIPTIVE — Column-wise descriptive statistics with flexible metric selection and optional column filtering.

Examples

• TRUE — use population n
• FALSE — use sample n-1

Get it in your sheet

ALS Stats is a free add-on for Google Sheets™.

Install ALS Stats from Google Workspace Marketplace (opens in a new tab)