The Excel AVEDEV Function

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Related Functions:  DEVSQ Function STDEV Function

Average Deviation

The Average Deviation, like the Standard Deviation, measures the deviation of a set of points from their average.

The Average Deviation is calculated by the following equation:

where x takes on each value in the set, x is the average (statistical mean) of the set of values, and n is the number of values.

Basic Description

The Excel AVEDEV function calculates the average deviation of a supplied set of values.

The format of the function is :

where the arguments, number1, [number2], etc, are one or more numerical values or references to cells containing numbers.

If you are using Excel 2007 or Excel 2010, you can enter up to 255 number arguments to the function. However, in Excel 2003, the function can only accept up to 30 number arguments.

Note that the Avedev function ignores logical values and text values (including text representations of numbers) if these are supplied as part of an array of cells. However, the function does count logical values and text representations of numbers that supplied directly to the function.

Avedev Function Example

A company keeps a record of its monthly sales figures, over the last three years. These are stored in cells B3 - B14, D3 - D14 and F3 - F14 of the spreadsheet on the right.

The average deviation of the three years' sales figures is calculated in cell H3 of the spreadsheet. The formula for this, as shown in the formula bar, is :

As shown in cell H3, the average deviation for the 3 years of sales figures is 2,027.78

Other Argument Types

In the example above, the arguments to the Avedev function are input as 3 cell ranges. However, you can also input figures directly, as individual numbers or number arrays.

For example, if, during January and February 2010 the sales figures are 13,000 and 14,500, you could add these directly into the above function as follows:

Either as individual numbers:

Or, as an array of numbers:

This gives the updated average deviation value of 1,973.68

Further information and examples of the Excel Avedev function can be found on the Microsoft Office website.

Trouble Shooting

If you get an error from the Excel Stdev function this is likely to be one of the following: