Descriptive Statistics Calculator
Paste your numbers below — separated by commas, spaces, or new lines — and get every common descriptive statistic instantly: mean, median, mode, variance, standard deviation, and quartiles.
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Sample vs. Population
The calculator reports variance and standard deviation two ways. The population versions divide by n and describe your numbers as a complete data set. The sampleversions divide by n − 1 (Bessel's correction), which corrects for the bias that appears when a sample is used to estimate a larger population. If your data is a sample drawn from a bigger group — as it usually is in research — report the sample statistics in your methods section.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What statistics does this calculator compute?
- It computes count, sum, minimum, maximum, range, mean, median, mode(s), sample and population variance, sample and population standard deviation, the first and third quartiles (Q1 and Q3), and the interquartile range (IQR).
- What is the difference between sample and population standard deviation?
- Population standard deviation divides by n, treating your numbers as the entire population. Sample standard deviation divides by n − 1 (Bessel's correction) to correct for the bias of estimating a population from a sample. Use the sample version for most research data.
- How is the median different from the mean?
- The mean is the arithmetic average of all values, while the median is the middle value when the data is sorted. The median is more robust to outliers — a single extreme value can pull the mean far from the center of the data.
- Can a data set have more than one mode?
- Yes. If two or more values tie for the highest frequency, the data is multimodal and every tied value is a mode. If no value repeats, the data set has no mode at all.
- How are the quartiles calculated?
- This tool uses the median-of-halves method: Q1 is the median of the lower half of the sorted data and Q3 is the median of the upper half, excluding the overall median when the count is odd. The IQR is Q3 minus Q1.
- What formats can I paste my numbers in?
- Separate numbers with commas, spaces, tabs, or new lines — or any mix of them. Decimals and negative numbers are supported, and anything that is not a number is ignored.