Research methods - Spearman's Rho

Question 1

Step 1

Answer 1

Correlation coefficient is an observed value to see if there’s a significant association between 2 variables that have at least ordinal data

Question 1

Step 2

Answer 1

• to work out the correlation coefficient, you need values for 2 different variables
  e.g. hours of sleep and test scores for 10 students

Question 2

Step 3

Answer 2

Then calculates an observed value

Question 3

Step 4

Answer 3

• if the observed value is close to +1 it shows a strong positive correlation
• if the observed value is not close to +1, it shows a strong negative correlation

Question 4

Step 5

Answer 4

The result of the calculation is then compared with a critical value

Question 5

Step 6

Answer 5

For data to be significant, the observed value must be greater than or equal to the relevant critical value in the table

Question 6

Step 7

Answer 6

• if the hypothesis is directional, a one-tailed test is used
• if the hypothesis is non-directional, a two-tailed test is used

Question 7

Step 8

Answer 7

• accept/reject null hypothesis
• accept/reject alternative hypothesis