# Averaging of two or more standard erros

I have calculated two standard errors for two fishers z correlations from the same study , both measuring the same variable. Is it acceptable for me to average the two standard errors into one? If so , how do I go about this please?

Thanks

If combining makes sense (*) (**), then two things:

• work with variances and then take square root;
• a weighted average should be used,

just like in the independent two-sample t-test where the pooled standard deviation is calculated as

$$s_p = \sqrt{\frac{(n_1 - 1) * s^2_1 + (n_2 - 1) * s^2_2}{n_1 + n_2 - 2}}$$

(*) not enough detail is provided

(**) cf. exchangeability

• Here is why I would need to combine them - Originally , I had to calculate the standard error and variance for both combined before entering the data into SPSS to calculate a meta analysis. I have originally combined the two fishers z to ensure that they are an independent sample for meta analysis , yet when it comes to calculating a standard error and variance I believe that I need one sample size and I have no idea how to combine the two sample sizes? – laboh Aug 6 '18 at 14:03