![How to do standard deviation on excel for mac 2011 How to do standard deviation on excel for mac 2011](/uploads/1/2/5/7/125735415/955330087.jpg)
The standard deviation is one of the most important pieces of statistical information about any set of data, and learning how to graph standard deviation in Excel.
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The normal distribution curve is also referred to as the bell curve, and it's used to calculate data trends using a curve-and-scatter chart against an X and Y axis. The curve is used as a visual aide to represent performance and randomness against any set of data. You can view the high points, low points and averages within the curve. It's often used on grading scales in school systems and for performance evaluations in business. Human resource departments are often tasked with building performance review processes, and the normal distribution curve serves as a mathematical means of demonstrating individual employee performance and group performance.
Why Use a Bell Curve Excel Process?
Hand drawing and calculating a normal distribution is difficult and time-intensive. Completing a normal distribution Excel sheet requires less effort, because the program assists with the drawing and graph generation. It is extremely handy, and after you create the first bell curve for a specific employee, student or project, you can reuse that sheet and simply replace the values with those of new projects, people or groups. For example, a teacher can create a grading scale in Excel and use the same scale repeatedly for grading on the curve. Grading on a curve is common in very difficult courses where the average score is low on the normal zero to 100 percent scale. Using the curve sets a new '100 percent' at the highest score to raise the remainder values while creating a fair grading scale. This method is widely used, especially at the collegiate level.
Create a Bell Curve Generator
You want to know who your best, average and worst performers are in school or business – and a bell curve is the most efficient and effective method of displaying this data in a mathematical format. Calculate the mean and the standard deviation from your data set. These variables are critical visual representations on the bell curve.
Open an Excel worksheet, and select the A1 cell. Enter the mean minus the standard deviation multiplied by 3. If your mean is 70 and the standard deviation is 9, you will subtract 27 from 70 for a total value of 43. Then calculate the mean plus 3 times the standard deviation. That number is 97 using this example. Now fill in the cells in column A from 43 to 97, ascending in order. In cell B1, enter the formula =Norm.Dist(A1, 70, 9, False). Add this same formula to the entire B column adjacent to your A column values. Now simply navigate to Insert in the menu, and choose Scatter with your preference for line types. Smooth lines are normal. This will automatically generate a bell curve based on your A and B axis values.
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About the Author
Zach Lazzari is a freelance writer with extensive experience in startups and digital advertising. He has a diverse background with a strong presence in the digital marketing world. Zach has developed and sold multiple successful web properties and manages marketing for multiple clients in the outdoor industry. He has published business content in Angling Trade Magazine and writes white papers and case studies for multiple corporate partners.
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Lazzari, Zach. 'Making a Normal Curve in Excel.' Small Business - Chron.com, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/making-normal-curve-excel-73850.html. 29 August 2018.
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Hi AppleBlanche,
I don't know if this is what you want to do but I hope it helps...
If you want to produce a bell curve using an +XY chart+ there are a number of resources available on the web to help you do that. One example is available at
http://tushar-mehta.com/excel/charts/normal_distribution/index.htm.
This actually provides step by step instructions for doing it in excel, but it should work in numbers.
If you want to plot the distribution of a data set you could do that by
(a) creating a histogram by dividing your data into bin ranges eg 0 to 10, 11 to 20, 21 to 30, ....,
(b) counting the number of instances falling within each range,
(c) putting the results of (b) into a table eg column would contain the description of the bin ranges and column B would contain the counts as follows
Column A Column B
0 to 10 33
11 to 20 66
21 to 30 77
(where 33, 66, 77 are the counts)
(d) using the table produced in (c) to produce a bar chart
(e) to get the traditional look of such a chart you would then use the chart inspector to set the gap between the bars to 0%.
I don't know if this is what you want to do but I hope it helps...
If you want to produce a bell curve using an +XY chart+ there are a number of resources available on the web to help you do that. One example is available at
http://tushar-mehta.com/excel/charts/normal_distribution/index.htm.
This actually provides step by step instructions for doing it in excel, but it should work in numbers.
If you want to plot the distribution of a data set you could do that by
(a) creating a histogram by dividing your data into bin ranges eg 0 to 10, 11 to 20, 21 to 30, ....,
(b) counting the number of instances falling within each range,
(c) putting the results of (b) into a table eg column would contain the description of the bin ranges and column B would contain the counts as follows
Column A Column B
0 to 10 33
11 to 20 66
21 to 30 77
(where 33, 66, 77 are the counts)
(d) using the table produced in (c) to produce a bar chart
(e) to get the traditional look of such a chart you would then use the chart inspector to set the gap between the bars to 0%.
Aug 14, 2008 5:24 PM