VAR.P()/VARP()

Syntax. VAR.P(number1,number2,...)

Definition. This function calculates the variance based on the population.

Arguments

  • number1 (required) and number2 (optional). At least one and up to 255 arguments (30 in Excel 2003 and earlier versions) corresponding to a population

Note

The VAR.P() function assumes that its arguments are the entire population. If your data represents a sample of the population, calculate the variance with VAR.S() or VARA().

Logical values (TRUE and FALSE) and text are ignored. If you want to include logical values in the calculation, use the VARPA() function.

Background. Because the only difference between VAR.P() and VAR.S() is that VAR.P() doesn’t calculate the variance based on a sample but based on the entire population, this example focuses on VAR.P(). You will find more information about variances in the description of VAR.S().

VAR.P() uses the following formula:

image with no caption

The value x is the sample mean AVERAGE(number1,number2,...), and n is the sample data set.

Example. Let’s get back to the website evaluation of the software company (see Figure 12-150).

Note

Note that the data to be evaluated includes the entire population. This means that the website has been available for only 18 months and that all the visits of the past 18 months have been recorded. The calculation with VAR.P() and VARPA() is based on the population of the data from January 2007 to June 2008.

Therefore, the VAR.P() and VAR.S() functions, which use different formulas, also return different results (see Figure 12-150). If you take a closer look at the DOWNLOAD area, you can make the following statement: The average squared deviation of the values from the arithmetic mean based on the population is 263,885.

Unlike VAR.S(), the calculation with the VAR.P() function includes the entire population.

Figure 12-150. Unlike VAR.S(), the calculation with the VAR.P() function includes the entire population.

See Also

DVAR(), DVARP(), VAR.S(), VARA(), VARPA()

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