degrees of freedom

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degrees of freedom In statistical analysis, the number of independent observations associated with an estimate of variance (see measures of variation) or of a component of an analysis of variance. The simplest example is in estimating the variance of a sample of n observations, where the degrees of freedom is n – 1, the divisor of the sum of squared deviations from the sample mean. More generally, the degrees of freedom, f, is the difference between the number of parameters in a given model, and a special case of that model with fewer parameters. The number of degrees of freedom is required when selecting a particular instance of the chi-squared distribution, Student's t distribution, or F distribution.

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