correlation and pilot studies

Question 1

what is correlation

Answer 1

measure of the strength and direction of a relationship between co-variables

Question 2

what is correlation analysis

Answer 2

testing a hypothesis using an association between two variables
co-variables instead of IV and DV

Question 3

what is a positive correlation

Answer 3

an increase in one variable leads to an increase in another variable looks like this /

Question 4

what is a negative correlation?

Answer 4

-as one variable increases, the other variable decreases

looks like this \

Question 5

what is a zero correlation

Answer 5

there is no correlation

data scattered/no pattern on graph

Question 6

how is correlation measured

Answer 6

scatter graphs
correlation coefficient
because these are statistical methods using quantitative data, you need to operationalise your variables

Question 7

what is a correlation coefficient

Answer 7

-numerical representation of the strength and direction of the relationship between two variables
- in the form of a number anywhere form -1.0 to +1.0
- 0=no correlation
- 0.0 to -1.0 negative correlation
- 0.0 to +1.0 positive correlation
<0.5 strong +,

Question 8

strengths of correlations

Answer 8

• allows researchers to analyse situations that could not be manipulated experimentally
• can produce reasonably definitive info about causal relationships if there is no correlation between two co-variables
• can collect a great amount of data quickly
• easy and quick to analyse
• allows us to see a relationship between two variables (even if not c+e)

Question 9

weakness of correlations

Answer 9

cannot establish c+e ( one may cause other, other may cause first, could be linked by a different thing (confounding variable) or could be random)

• researcher cannot manipulate variables
• confounding variables other than the ones measured can have effect
• ethical issues - often study controversial/sensitive issues, need to be aware of social sensitivity