User Guide

397

Bivariate Corr

elations

Figure 23-2

Bivariate Correlations dialog box

E Select two or more numeric variables.

The following options are also available:

 Correlation Coefficients. For quantitative, normally distributed variables, choose

the

Pearson correlation coefficient. If your data are not normally distributed or

have ord

ered categories, choose

Kendall’s tau-b or Spearman, which measure the

association between rank orders. Correlation coefficients range in value from –1

(a perfect negative relationship) and +1 (a perfect positive relationship). A value

of 0 ind

icates no linear relationship. When interpreting your results, be careful

not to draw any cause-and-effect conclusions due to a significant correlation.

 Test of Significance. You can select two-tailed or one-tailed probabilities. If

the direction of association is known in advance, select

One-tailed.Otherwise,

selec

Two -taile d.

 Flag

significant correlations.

Correlation coefficients significant at the 0.05 level

are identified with a single asterisk, and those significant at the 0.01 level are

identified with two asterisks.