Sum of squared values: what it means and how to read it
In the report: sumOfSquares — The sum of the squared values: Σ x²; empty for a column without a single number.
How to read it
An ingredient of other formulas; rarely reported on its own.
In plain words
A teacher was checking a long calculation by hand and wanted to be sure her first step was right. She asked for sumOfSquares of the column 2, 4, 6 and 8, and the add-on gave 120. On its own, 120 says nothing about her class, and nobody writes it into a report. It is a building block that other numbers are made from. Now she can compare 120 with her own paper work and see that she made no mistake in the first step. If the column has no numbers at all, the cell stays empty.
Where you see it
STATS_DESCRIPTIVE— Column-wise descriptive statistics with flexible metric selection and optional column filtering.
Related values
- Sum of squared deviations — The sum of the squared deviations from the mean: Σ (x − x̄)²; empty for a column without a single number, 0 for one value.
- Inverse-variance weight — n / variance; empty for a column without spread or with fewer than 2 values.
- z-score of a value — The z-score of the value v: (v − mean) / std; 0 for a column without spread; empty without v.
- Weighted mean — The weighted mean with the weights in the column weightsCol, row by row; a zero, negative or missing weight leaves the row out, as SPSS WEIGHT. Empty when no row has a usable weight.
- Standard error — The standard error of the estimate: how much it would vary from sample to sample.
Get it in your sheet
One formula in a cell gives the whole report, Sum of squared values included. ALS Stats is a free add-on for Google Sheets™.
Install ALS Stats from Google Workspace Marketplace (opens in a new tab)