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Interpreting Correlation Tables: SOC 335 - Marlowe Lab Exercise #1 - Example

This document provides an explanation of how to interpret correlation tables in SPSS. It explains that a correlation table shows the relationship between two variables by displaying the correlation coefficient (r value), significance level, and number of subjects. Specifically: 1) The r value indicates the strength and direction of correlation, ranging from -1 to 1. Positive values mean the variables increase together, negative means one increases as the other decreases. 2) The significance level indicates if the correlation is statistically significant, with smaller p-values like .05, .01 being more significant. 3) An example correlation table is analyzed, showing a positive significant correlation between age and exam scores on Exam 1 and Exam 3, meaning

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78 views2 pages

Interpreting Correlation Tables: SOC 335 - Marlowe Lab Exercise #1 - Example

This document provides an explanation of how to interpret correlation tables in SPSS. It explains that a correlation table shows the relationship between two variables by displaying the correlation coefficient (r value), significance level, and number of subjects. Specifically: 1) The r value indicates the strength and direction of correlation, ranging from -1 to 1. Positive values mean the variables increase together, negative means one increases as the other decreases. 2) The significance level indicates if the correlation is statistically significant, with smaller p-values like .05, .01 being more significant. 3) An example correlation table is analyzed, showing a positive significant correlation between age and exam scores on Exam 1 and Exam 3, meaning

Uploaded by

Hien Nguyen
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© © All Rights Reserved
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SOC 335 – Marlowe

Lab Exercise #1 - Example

INTERPRETING CORRELATION TABLES

This analysis is for the question about the possible relationship between the
variables “age” and “exam scores.”

The first thing you would do is locate the cell where the 2 variables of interest
intersect. "Age" is the independent variable, and for your dependent variable
"test scores" you actually have 2 two pieces of test score information (Exam #1
and Exam #3). So you actually have two related questions:

(1) What was the relationship between "age" and "test score" for Exam #1? (the
blue cell); and (2) What was the relationship between "age" and "test score" for
Exam #3 (the tan cell)?

SPSS correlation table cells always contain at least 3 pieces of information:


1. The size of the correlation (the "r" statistic), which has a range between -1
(perfect negative correlation) and 1 (perfect positive correlation). If the
correlation is "statistically significant" SPSS also flags this number with either a
(*) [significant at least at the .05 level] or (**) [significant at least at the .01 level].
If the correlation statistic doesn't have a minus in front of it, that means that the
correlation is positive, which means that high scores for both variables go
together, and low scores for both variables go together. If the correlation statistic
had a minus in front of it, that would mean that as the values of one variable goes
up, the values of the other variable goes down (i.e., a negative or inverse
correlation).

2. The level of significance for the correlation (a level of .05 or smaller is


considered "statistically significant). Remember that the more zeros past the
decimal point, the smaller the number is. So, the following levels of significance
are increasingly smaller, and thus more statistically significant: .05, .01, .005,
.001. SPSS only shows three numbers past the decimal point, so if you get a
significance level of .000 it doesn’t mean that the level of significance is
absolutely zero. It just means that the number can’t be any larger than
.0004. If it were larger than that, in SPSS it would round up to .001.

3. The number of subjects that were considered in this particular test.

So in this case, the blue cell (relation of age and Exam 1 scores) shows that you
have a postive correlation of .705 between "age" and "Exam 1 scores" (i.e., as
age scores went up, Exam 1 scores went up), and that this relationship was
statistically significant at the .001 level. In words, that means that older students
did significantly better on Exam 1. The tan cell (relation of age and Exam 3
scores) shows a comparable, but even stronger, result. Older students did even
better than younger students on Exam 3 than they did on Exam 1.

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