Question

Describe the difference between standard deviation and standard error.

Answer 1

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STANDARD DEVIATION AND STANDARD ERROR:

• Standard Deviation is the measure of dispersion of the set of values from their mean. Standard Error gauges the accuracy of an estimate, i.e. it is the measure of variability of the theoretical distribution of a statistic.
• Standard Deviation is a descriptive statistic, whereas the standard error is an inferential statistic.
• Standard Deviation measures how far the individual values are from the mean value. On the contrary, standard error measures how close the sample mean is to the population mean.
• Standard Deviation is the distribution of observations with reference to the normal curve. As against this, the standard error is the distribution of an estimate with reference to the normal curve.
• Standard Deviation is defined as the square root of the variance.

Conversely, the standard error is described as the standard deviation divided by square root of sample size.

• When the sample size is increased, it provides a more particular measure of standard deviation. Whereas the standard error tends to decrease when the sample size is increased.