SKEW Excel Formula

Author Zaheer    Category Formulas     Tags ,

Microsoft Excel is composed of useful functions and formulas in the applications to help the users in working with complicated financial and mathematical computations. The good thing about this function is that, it offers relatively simple way of performing complex calculations by just doing some clicks. One of these functions is SKEW function.

The function is useful if you would like to find for degrees of asymmetry in a distributions around the means of given set of data. So, if you find it interesting, it is better for you to go further reading on this article. To start with, let’s have first a brief overview of the skewness so that it will be easier for you to learn and understand the concept behind SKEW function in Microsoft Excel.

Overview of Skewness

The Skew of set of data measures asymmetry of distribution concerning the means.

  • A perfect symmetry is indicated by skew of 0.
  • Positive skew specifies that more value are below means and you will see in the graph that the tail of distribution extends in the direction of higher value.
  • Negative skew specifies that more value are below mean, then you will see in the graph that the tail of distribution extends in the direction of lower values.

Basic Description of SKEW Function in Microsoft Excel

SKEW Functions in Microsoft Excel is used to compute for skewness of distribution of supplied sets of numeric values. The formula of SKEW function includes:

=SKEW(number1, [number], …)

In this formula, number arguments are only limited up to minimum of three numeric values that you can supply in data set. The arguments can be supplied as array of numeric values or individual numeric values. Moreover, it can be supplied either as cell reference which contain the numeric values, as numeric values returned from another formula or function or as the actual numeric values.

In 2007 version of Excel, you can supply not more than 255 arguments to SKEW function, however, in terms of Excel 2003, could only supply not more than 30 arguments.

Example on How to Apply SKEW Function in Microsoft Excel

Here is an example that will help you to learn on how to apply SKEW function in Excel. The best way to understand this is to practice doing this in your blank Excel spreadsheet.

Let’s say that you have the following numeric values in cells B1 to B15: 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Skewness of values can be computed with the use of SKEW Function by using this formula, =SKEW(B1:B15). Then the function will return the result which is 0.863378312. This result indicates that the set of data has positive skew.Common Error in Using SKEW Function in MS’Excel’s. #DIV/0! errors value is displayed if either data points has a standard deviations of zero or lesser than 3 values has been entered in formula of the function.

Further readings

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