Chapter 2
|
Aggregate functions 29
Description
Returns the variance of a population represented by a series of non-blank values. The
variance of a population distribution is a measure of how spread out the distribution is.
Use this function on any of the following fields:
• a repeating field (repeatingField).
• a field in matching related records specified by (table::field), whether or not
these records appear in a portal.
• several non-repeating fields in a record (field1;field2;field3...).
• corresponding repetitions of repeating fields in a record
(repeatingField1;repeatingField2;repeatingField3), if the result is
returned in a repeating field with at least the same number of repeats.
• several fields in the first matching record specified by
(table::field1;table::field2;...). You can include fields from different
tables (table 1::field A;table 2::field B...).
Examples
A portal displays the related values 5, 6, 7, and 8 in Scores.
VarianceP(table::Scores) returns 1.25.
In the following examples:
• Field1 contains two repetitions with values of 1 and 2.
• Field2 contains four repetitions with values of 5, 6, 7, and 8.
• Field3 contains four repetitions with values of 6, 0, 4, and 4.
• Field4 contains one repetition with a value of 3.
VarianceP(Field4) results in an error since the variance of a single value is not
defined.
VarianceP(Field1;Field2;Field3) returns 4.66666666..., 6.22222222..., 2.25, 4
if the calculation is a repeating field.
Student example:
Two classes of students take an exam. Class 1 has scores of 70, 71, 70, 74, 75, 73, 72
and Class 2 has scores of 55, 80, 75, 40, 65, 50, 95. The population variance for each
class is:
Class 1: 3.26530612...
Class 2: 310.20408163...
The population variance for Class 1 is much lower than the population variance for Class
2 because the scores for Class 1 are more tightly clustered.
VarianceP
x
1
2
x
2
2
… x
n
2
+++
n
------------------------------------------
x
1
x
2
… x
n
+++
n
-----------------------------------------
⎝⎠
⎛⎞
2
–=
Commentaires sur ces manuels