How to calculate the coefficient of variation

Standard deviation divided by mean = coefficient of variation

Coefficient of variation is another statistic to measure the degree of variation of each observed value in the data. When comparing the degree of variation of two or more data, if the unit of measurement is the same as the average, the standard deviation can be directly used for comparison. If the units and/or average values are different, the standard deviation cannot be used to compare the degree of variation, but the ratio of standard deviation to average value (relative value) should be used for comparison.

Compared with standard deviation, the advantage of coefficient of variation is that it does not need the average value of reference data. Coefficient of variation is a dimensionless quantity, so when comparing two groups of data with different dimensions or different mean values, coefficient of variation should be used instead of standard deviation as a reference for comparison.

Extended data:

The smaller the coefficient of variation, the smaller the degree of variation.

Reason: The coefficient of variation is a reference index when comparing the degree of variation between several indexes of different units. The greater the coefficient of variation, the greater the degree of variation.

Coefficient of variation When it is necessary to compare the deviation of two groups of data, if the measurement scales of the two groups of data are too different or the data dimensions are different, it is not appropriate to compare them directly with the standard deviation. At this time, the influence of measurement scale and size should be eliminated.

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