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I had a lab where calculating standard error was explained. My instructor did a cross multiplication move and ended up with range / n

How exactly does this work?

Are there other ways of representing standard error?

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You should say that in calculating the standard error your instructor ended up with the population standard deviation divided by the square root of n. – Michael Chernick Aug 11 '12 at 20:20

closed as not a real question by William, Qiaochu Yuan Aug 11 '12 at 20:37

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1 Answer

I assume you are talking about the standard error of the mean which is the standard deviation of the estimate of the mean. It is not equal to the range divide by n. Let s$^2$ be the variance for each of a set of n independent identically distributed observations X$_i$ i=1,2,...,n.

Let X$_b$ = ∑X$_i$/n Then since Var(cY)=c$^2$Var(Y) where c is constant and Y is a random variable and if Y and Z are independent random variables the Var(Y+Z)=Var(Y)+Var(Z),

Var(∑X$_i$/n ) = ∑Var(X$_i$)/n$^2$ =n s$^2$ /n$^2$=s$^2$/n. Since the variance is s$^2$/n the standard error is s/√n. So contrary to your statement the standard error is the population standard deviation divided by the square root of n.

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is there any other way of representing it? – Inemesit Affia Aug 18 '12 at 8:38
No. It is defined as the standard deviation of the sample mean and is therefore s/√n when the observations are IID. – Michael Chernick Aug 18 '12 at 12:41

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