Question

A police recruit is training in marksmanship. The trainer measures the distance of the recruit’s shots from the target. How should the instructor expect the standard deviation of the recruit’s distance scores to change from the beginning of the training to the end of the training?

Answer 1

The standard deviation of the shot from the target at the end of the training would be smaller than at the beginning.

Explanation: First of all, the whole point of any training is to get better at a particular skill. Bearing that in mind, as the training progresses, the recruit should naturally improve at shooting and his shots would get better.

Therefore, his shots should get closer and closer to the target and the mean/average distance of the recruit's shot from the target should decrease.

Thus, at the end of the training, the instructor should expect the standard deviation of the distance scores to be relatively smaller than at the beginning of the training.