How to Calculate Sample Size in Excel (With Example)

by Tutor Aspire January 17, 2023

You can use the COUNTA function to calculate the sample size of a dataset in Excel.

This function uses the following basic syntax:

=COUNTA(A2:A16)

This particular formula counts all of the non-blank cells in the range A2:A16.

The following example shows how to use this function to calculate a sample size in Excel in practice.

Example: Calculating Sample Size in Excel

Suppose we have the following dataset that shows the points scored by basketball players on various teams:

We can type the following formula into cell E1 to calculate the sample size of this dataset:

=COUNTA(A2:A16)

The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:

calculating sample size in Excel

From the output we can see that the sample size is 15.

Note that if we’d like to calculate the sample size using a criteria, we could use the COUNTIF function instead.

For example, we could use the following formula to calculate the sample size only for the players on the Hawks team:

=COUNTIF(A2:A16, "Hawks")

The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:

From the output we can see that the sample size for the players on the Hawks team is 5.

We could also use the symbols to calculate the sample size for the players who are not on the Hawks team:

=COUNTIF(A2:A16, "Hawks")

The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:

From the output we can see that the sample size for the players not on the Hawks team is 10.

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in Excel: