STDDEV_SAMP function [Aggregate]

Computes the standard deviation of a sample consisting of a numeric-expression, as a DOUBLE.

STDDEV_SAMP ( [ALL] expression )

The following statement lists the average and variance in the number of items per order in different time periods:

SELECT year( ship_date ) AS Year, quarter( ship_date )
  AS Quarter, AVG( quantity ) AS Average, 
  STDDEV_SAMP( quantity ) AS Variance 
FROM sales_order_items GROUP BY Year, Quarter 
  ORDER BY Year, Quarter;

Computes the sample standard deviation of the provided value expression evaluated for each row of the group or partition (if DISTINCT was specified, then each row that remains after duplicates have been eliminated), defined as the square root of the sample variance.

Standard deviations are computed according to the following formula, which assumes a normal distribution: