Question

A sample of 25 undergraduates reported the following dollar amounts of entertainment expenses last year:

30,50,40,55,48,35,42,38,60,65,52,45,55,58,50,48,43,40,36,52,47,44,57,53,49

Calculate the mean and standard deviation of the reported entertainment expenses for the sample. What do these statistics indicate about the central tendency and variability of the data?

Answer 1

The mean and standard deviation are statistical measures used to describe the central tendency and variability of the data respectively.

Step-by-step explanation:

To calculate the mean and standard deviation of the reported entertainment expenses for the sample, one must first add all the expenses together and then divide by the number of students (25) to find the mean. Secondly, to find the standard deviation, we need to calculate the variance by subtracting the mean from each individual expense, squaring the result, and then taking the average of those squared differences. Finally, the square root of that average gives us the standard deviation.

The mean indicates the central tendency or typical amount spent by the students on entertainment expenses, while the standard deviation reflects the variability or spread of the expenses around that mean