Spearman’s Rank (A.1.9)

Question 1

State when it would be appropriate to use a Spearman’s rank correlation analysis. Give a couple of examples

Answer 1

For example, you could use a Spearman’s correlation to understand whether there is an association between exam performance and time spent revising; whether there is an association between depression and length of unemployment; and so forth.

Question 2

State how you would correctly write a hypothesis for the Spearman’s rank correlation

Answer 2

Similar to other stats tests two hypotheses would be written. A null and alternate hypothesis, with the null either being rejected or accepted by the end of the experiment

Question 3

State how you would select the correct critical value to compare to in Spearman’s rank correlation

Answer 3

At the significance level of 5% you’d then look at the table to the number of pairs in the data (which would be degrees of freedom). From here read across to the 5% value for the critical which should be a value from 0-1

Question 4

State how you would write a conclusion to a Spearman’s rank correlation if: a) the result was significant
b) the result was insignificant