Excel VAR function

Function              VAR

Description        Excel VAR function returns the sample variance of a supplied set of values.

Syntax  VAR(number1, [number2], …)

number1  First numerical value or reference in the sample.

number2  [optional] Second numerical value or reference in the sample.

Example:

=VAR(12,22,34,18)=86.333

Average of these 4 numbers is 21.5

=((12-21.5)^2+(22-21.5)^2+(34-21.5)^2+(18-21.5)^2)/(4-1)=86.333

Usage Note:

The Variance is a statistical formula to measure how far a data set is spread out. The technical definition is “The average of the squared differences from the mean,”

When the data set is a sample of a large data set then instead of the Variance, Sample Variance is used. The equation for this is:

where,

x refer to each value in the set;

x̄ is the average (statistical mean) of the set of values;

n is the number of values.