Re: Basic rookie question about standard error



BillCo wrote:

> Thanks for all the help guys, that really clears thing up for me at
> last!!
>
> The zeros do not represent n/a and hence they should be used for
> calcualtion of the mean and standard error :)

One question. Why are you calculating SE? If the purpose is to
describe the variability of the observed data, you should
calculate the SD. The SE is telling you about the variability
of the sampling distribution of the mean.

--
Kevin E. Thorpe
Biostatistician/Trialist, Knowledge Translation Program
Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences
Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto

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