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.