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Relationship Between Variables: Chandan Sharma

The document discusses the relationship between variables and different types of relationships that can exist. It defines explanatory and response variables and discusses how they can be related through linear, nonlinear, positive and negative relationships. Scatterplots are presented as a useful way to visualize relationships between two quantitative variables and identify patterns like outliers. Measures of relationships like causality, covariance and correlation are also mentioned.

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Nischay Tayal
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52 views

Relationship Between Variables: Chandan Sharma

The document discusses the relationship between variables and different types of relationships that can exist. It defines explanatory and response variables and discusses how they can be related through linear, nonlinear, positive and negative relationships. Scatterplots are presented as a useful way to visualize relationships between two quantitative variables and identify patterns like outliers. Measures of relationships like causality, covariance and correlation are also mentioned.

Uploaded by

Nischay Tayal
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Relationship between

variables
Chandan Sharma
Relationship between variables
• We will study the relationship between two variables measured from
an individual.
• In many studies we measure more than one variable for each
individual.
• Some examples include:
• The weight of a car and its gas mileage (in miles per gallon)
• Exercise and cholesterol levels for a group of people
• Height and weight for a group of people
Relationship between variables
• In cases where multiple variables are measured from individuals,
• we are interested in whether the variables have some kind of a
relationship.
• We’d like to know whether changes in one variable lead to specific
(and thus predictable) changes in another variable.
Types of variables
• When we have two variables, they could be “connected” in one of
several different ways:
• They could be completely unrelated.
• One variable (the explanatory or predictor variable) could be used to explain
the other (the response or dependent variable).
• One variable could be thought of as causing the other variable to change.
Types of variables
• A response variable measures an outcome of a study (think y-value or
dependent variable)
• An explanatory variable explains or influences changes in a response
variable (think x-value or independent variable).
• Sometimes it is not clear which variable is the explanatory variable
and which is the response variable.
Types of variables
• Sometimes the two variables are related without either being
explanatory or response variables.
• And sometimes the two variables are both affected by a different
variable, called a lurking variable, which was not collected or included
in the study.
Types of variables
• Studies with lurking variables can cause a lot of trouble for people
trying to prove a point.
• An excellent example of a lurking variable is
• A study that shows the number of television sets in your home can be
used to predict your life expectancy!
Scatterplot
• The most useful graph to show the relationship between two
quantitative variables is the scatter diagram.

• If a distinction exists in the two variables being studied, plot the


explanatory variable (X) on the horizontal scale, and plot the
response variable (Y) on the vertical scale.

• With a scatterplot, each individual in the data set is represented by a


single point (x, y) in the xy-plane.
Example
• A professor at a large
midwestern university wanted
to
• Study the relationship between
the number of class absences a
student has in a given semester
and that student’s final course
grade.
Example
• Identifying the relationship between the two data values from a table
is difficult, so we create a scatterplot.

• In this case, the professor hopes that the number of a student’s


absences will offer some explanation of his or her final course grade.
Example
• Plot the 10 points on the
XY-axes, using the points
(0, 89.2) (1, 86.4), and so
on.

• Typically we rely on
technology to create the
scatterplot for us. A
scatterplot created in Excel
looks like:
Types of Relationships
• Once you have a scatterplot, it can be used to identify an overall
pattern and deviations from this pattern.

• You can describe the pattern by form, direction, and strength of the
relationship, and you can identify points that do not follow the overall
pattern (outliers).

• This is a process very similar to describing distributions!


Types of Relationships
• Some relationships are such that the points of a scatterplot tend to
fall along a more-or-less straight line.

• Two variables have a linear relationship in a scatter plot when the


two variables roughly follow a straight-line pattern.

• We say two variables have a positive association if above-average


values of one variable tend to accompany above-average values of
the other variable, and below-average values tend to occur together.
Types of Relationships
• Likewise, two variables have a negative association if above-average
values of one variable tend to accompany below-average values of
the other variable, and vice versa.

• When the points in a scatter plot do roughly follow a straight line, the
direction of the pattern tells how the variables respond to each other.
Types of Relationships
• A positive slope indicates that as the values of one variable increase,
so do the values of the other variable.
• This type of relationship between two variables is called a positive
linear relationship.

• A negative slope indicates that as the values of one variable increase,


the values of the other variable decrease.
• This type of relationship between two variables is called a negative
linear relationship.
Positive and Negative Scatter Plots
• Some data exhibits a nonlinear (or curved) relationship.
• An excellent example of a nonlinear data set is the relationship
between the speed you drive your car and the corresponding gas
mileage.
• This relationship is more quadratic in nature, with an example shown
in the left image.
Non-linear relationship
Measurement of the relationship between
variables
• Causality: Relationship between two events where one event is
affected by the other.

• Covariance: A quantitative measure of the joint variability between


two or more variables.

• Correlation: Measure the relationship between two variables and


ranges from -1 and 1, the normalized version of covariance.

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