Forum Discussion
Selecting Data with Minimum Standard Deviation
Hi everyone, I'm working on a project but the data collected is more than needed, so I need to choose data with the minimum deviation or least error. Example : Thickness of material A with 10x ...
In the attached version, I have implemented my VBA algorithm (with StDev_P instead of StDev_S) as a custom function. It is used in an array formula confirmed with Ctrl+Shift+Enter to return the selected values.
Here is a brute force approach for your specific situation. It uses VBA, so you'll have to allow macros.
Use StDev_P and STDEV.P (STDEVP), not StDev_S and STDEV.S (STDEV).
StDev_P returns the actual std dev of a set of numbers.
Use StDev_S when the set of numbers represents a sampling from a larger population, and we want to estimate the std dev of the population, not the subset per se.
That does not apply here (``choose data with the minimum deviation``)
Thanks. It's easy to modify the macro - I'll leave that to the OP.
