Final answer:
The standard deviation of a dataset is a measure of the spread of its values. To find it for the given data set, you should calculate the mean, subtract the mean from each data point, square it, average those squared differences, and take the square root. More values around the mode would likely decrease the standard deviation.
Step-by-step explanation:
To calculate the standard deviation of the given data set (76, 60, 64, 71, 68, 59, 62, 63, 65, 71, 74, 58, 62, 64, 71), we follow these steps:
Find the mean (average) of the data set.
- Subtract the mean from each data point and square the result.
- Find the average of these squared differences.
- Take the square root of the average to get the standard deviation.
Using a calculator or software will simplify this process. When values cluster around the mode (the data point that appears most frequently), it means there's less variability and hence we'd expect the standard deviation to decrease, since standard deviation is a measure of how spread out numbers are.