Examining Relationships in Quantitative Research

 Understand and evaluate the types of relationships between variables

 Examining Relationships between Variables

 The relationship between variables can be explained in various ways such as:
 Presence of a relationship
 Direction of the relationship
 Strength of association
 Type of relationship

 Relationships between variables can be described through:

 Presence of a relationship – E.g., if we are interested to study the customer satisfaction
levels of a fast-food restaurant, then we need to know if the quality of food and
customer satisfaction have any relationship or not.

 Direction of the relationship – The direction of a relationship can be either positive or

negative – Food quality perceptions are related positively to customer commitment
toward a restaurant.

 Strength of association:
 They are generally categorized as:
 No relationship
 Weak relationship
 Moderate relationship
 Strong relationship

 Types:
 There are different ways in which two variables can share a relationship
 Linear relationship:
 An association between two variables whereby the strength and nature of the
relationship remains the same over the range of both variables.
 Curvilinear relationship:

 A relationship between two variables whereby the strength and/or direction of their
relationship changes over the range of both variables.
In other words a Curvilinear Relationship is a type of relationship between two
variables where as one variable increases, so does the other variable, but only up to a
certain point, after which, as one variable continues to increase, the other decreases.

 Explain the concepts of association and co-variation

 Covariation and Variable Relationships:

• Covariation measures the direction of the relationship between two variables. A positive
covariance means that both variables tend to be high or low at the same time. A
negative covariance means that when one variable is high, the other tends to be low
Covariation the amount of change in one variable that is consistently related to
the change in another variable of interest.
• Scatter diagram: A graphic plot of the relative position of two variables using a
horizontal and a vertical axis to represent the values of the respective variables
• A way of visually describing the Covariation between two variables

 No relation between X and Y then

 A correlation of zero implies that there is no linear relationship between X and Y.

 Positive Relationship between X and Y

 A positive correlation implies a positive relationship between X and Y: as X increase Y
increases.
 Negative Relationship between X and Y
 A negative correlation implies a negative relationship between X and Y: as X increases, Y
decreases.

 Curvilinear Relationship between X and Y

Variables that change as the values of the variables change (increase or decrease)

 Discuss the differences between Pearson correlation and

Spearman correlation
• Pearson product moment correlation
• The Pearson correlation evaluates the linear relationship between two continuous
variables. A relationship is linear when a change in one variable is associated with a
proportional change in the other variable.
• For example, you might use a Pearson correlation to evaluate whether increases in
temperature at your production facility are associated with decreasing thickness of your
chocolate coating.
• Spearman rank-order correlation
• The Spearman correlation evaluates the monotonic relationship between two
continuous or ordinal variables. In a monotonic relationship, the variables tend to
change together, but not necessarily at a constant rate. The Spearman correlation
coefficient is based on the ranked values for each variable rather than the raw data.
 Spearman correlation is often used to evaluate relationships involving ordinal variables.
For example, you might use a Spearman correlation to evaluate whether the order in
which employees complete a test exercise is related to the number of months they have
been employed.

 Correlation Analysis

 Pearson correlation coefficient:

 Statistical measure of the strength of a linear relationship between two metric variables
 Varies between – 1.00 and 1.00
 0 represents absolutely no association between two variables
 – 1.00 or 1.00 represent a perfect link between two variables
 Correlation coefficient can be either positive or negative.

 Rules of Thumb about the Strength of Correlation Coefficients

 Assumptions for Calculating Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient

 These are the assumptions your data must meet if you want to use Pearson’s r:
 Both variables are on an interval or ratio level of measurement
 Data from both variables follow normal distributions
 Your data have no outliers
 Your data is from a random or representative sample
 You expect a linear relationship between the two variables.
 Substantive Significance of the Correlation Coefficient
 Coefficient of determination (r2):
 A number measuring the proportion of variation in one variable accounted for by
another
 It can be thought of as a percentage and varies from 0.0 to 1.00
 The larger the size of the coefficient of determination, the stronger the linear
relationship between the two variables being examined.

 Influence of Measurement Scales on Correlation Analysis

 Spearman rank order correlation coefficient:

 A statistical measure of the linear association between two variables where both have
been measured using ordinal (rank order) scales.

 Explain the concept of statistical significance versus practical

significance.

 Understand when and how to use regression analysis

 What is Regression Analysis?

 Regression analysis is a reliable method of identifying which variables have impact on a
topic of interest. The process of performing a regression allows you to confidently
determine which factors matter most, which factors can be ignored, and how these
factors influence each other, a regression analysis helps you predict the effects of the
independent variable on the dependent one

 Bivariate regression analysis

 Bivariate Regression Analysis involves analyzing two variables to establish the strength

of the relationship between them. The two variables are frequently denoted as X and Y,
with one being an independent variable (or explanatory variable), while the other is a
dependent variable (or outcome variable.

 Use of a simple regression model assumes:

 Variables of interest are measured on interval or ratio scales
 Variables come from a normal population
 Error terms associated with making predictions are normally and independently
distributed

 Fundamentals of Regression Analysis

 General formula for a straight line

• Where,
– Y = The dependent variable
– a = The intercept (point where the straight line intersects the Y-axis when X = 0)
– b = The slope (the change in Y for every 1 unit change in X )
– X = The independent variable used to predict Y
– e = The error of the prediction
i
–
 The Straight Line Relationship in Regression

 Least Squares Procedure

 A regression approach that determines the best-fitting line by minimizing the vertical
distances of all the points from the line.

 Unexplained Variance
 The amount of variation in the dependent variable that cannot be accounted for by the
combination of independent variables.

– Fitting the Regression Line Using the “Least Squares” Procedure

 Ordinary Least Squares
 A statistical procedure that estimates regression equation coefficients that produce the
lowest sum of squared differences between the actual and predicted values of the
dependent variable.

 Regression Coefficient
 An indicator of the importance of an independent variable in predicting a dependent
variable
 Large coefficients are good predictors and small coefficients are weak predictors.

– SPSS Results for Bivariate Regression

 Significance of Regression Coefficients:

 Multiple Regression Analysis

 Multiple regression is a statistical technique that can be used to analyze the relationship
between a single dependent variable and several independent variables. The objective
of multiple regression analysis is to use the independent variables whose values are
known to predict the value of the single dependent value.
 Beta Coefficient
• In statistics, standardized (regression) coefficients, also called beta coefficients an
estimated regression coefficient that has been recalculated to have a mean of 0 and a
standard deviation of 1
• Such a change enables independent variables with different units of measurement to be
directly compared on their association with the dependent variable.
 Examining the Statistical Significance of Each Coefficient.
 Each regression coefficient is divided by its standard error to produce a t statistic. Which
is compared against the critical value to determine whether the null hypothesis can be
rejected.
 Model F statistic: Compares the amount of variation in the dependent measure
“explained” or associated with the independent variables to the “unexplained” or error
variance.
 A larger F statistic indicates that the regression model has more explained variance than
error variance.

 Substantive Significance
 simply said substantive significance is about the size of a relationship/ an effect,
whereas statistical significance is about measurement precision (usually based on a
sample)
 The multiple r2 describes the strength of the relationship between all the independent
variables and the dependent variable
 The larger the r2 measure, the more of the behavior of the dependent measure is
associated with the independent measures we are using to predict it.

 Multiple Regression Assumptions

• Linear relationship
• Homoskedasticity:
• The pattern of the co-variation is constant (the same) around the regression line,
whether the values are small, medium, or large.

• Heteroskedasticity:
• The pattern of covariation around the regression line is not constant around the
regression line, and varies in some way when the values change from small to medium
and large
 Normal distribution
 Normal curve: A curve that indicates the shape of the distribution of a variable is equal
both above and below the mean.

• Multicollinearity
• A situation in which several independent variables are highly correlated with each other
• Can result in difficulty in estimating independent regression coefficients for the
correlated variables