Correlation Flashcards
(8 cards)
What are the three kinds of correlation?
Positive Correlation
As one co-variable increases, so does the other co-variable
Negative Correlation
As one co-variable increases, the other co-variable decreases
No Correlation
No clear relationship between co-variables
What is a research question?
A broad question about a concept being investigated. It MUST end with a ?.
e.g are people happy when its sunny?
What is a research aim?
Identifying a more specific concept within the research question.
e.g to investigate whether there is a relationship between sunshine and happiness?
How do you operationalise the co-variables?
-Each participant must have two seperate ordinal level numbers that relate to eachother
What are the types of correlational hypothesis?
Two tailed correlational hypothesis
“There will be a significant correlation between co-variables x and y”
One tailed correlational hypothesis
“There will be a significant positive/negative correlation between co-variables x and y”
Null hypothesis
“There will be no significant correlation between co-variables x and y”
How do you interpret the strength of a correlation?
+- 0.25 each time
from none, to weak, moderate, strong, perfect.
What are the advantages of correlational studies?
Previous data can be correlated, and can tell us something new
It is a good starting point for research as once a relationship has been established, more research can be conducted to investigate them further.
What are the disadvantages of a correlation?
They do not tell us about cause and effect. Even if a positive effect can be established, it does not tell us WHY.
They do not require the collection of any qualitative data. This limits our ability to know what sits behind a relationship.
Inferential statistic tests may not pick up on relationships. A correlation may produce a co-efficient of zero, even though there is a genuine pattern.
