Standard error vs. Standard error of measurement Standard error vs. Standard error of measurement

ANSWER: The most direct answer to your question is "no." Most likely, you are referring to the STEYX function in the ubiquitous Excel spreadsheet. The statistic calculated by the STEYX function is commonly referred to as the standard error of estimate and that is not the standard error of measurement. As your question suggests, the standard error of estimate is often confused with the standard error of measurement that is reported by some test analysis software, or even with the standard error of the mean that is reported by more sophisticated statistical packages like SPSS, SAS, or SYSTAT. Let me try to unscramble all of this step by step by first reviewing what the standard deviation is. Then I will be able to explain the definitions and differences among the standard error of the mean, the standard error of estimate, and the standard error of measurement.