What are the reasons for performing correlational research?

Define/give a brief description of these terms: positive correlation, negative correlation, nonlinear correlation. Be able to give/recognize an example of each.

Be able to draw/recognize a scatterplot for a positive correlation, a negative correlation, and a nonlinear correlation.

If there is a correlation between two variables, what can we say about a causal link between those two variables? Why?

What is a correlation coefficient? What letter do we use to symbolize the Pearson correlation coefficient?

How do we represent the strength of a correlation? How do we represent the direction (positive or negative) of the correlation?

What is a spurious correlation?

Why do we create a scatterplot of the data before running a correlation analysis in SPSS?

Why do we have to be concerned about restriction of range? Why do we have to be concerned about outliers?

What is the null hypothesis in a correlational study? What is the alternative/research hypothesis?

What is the general logic of the Pearson correlation coefficient?

What kind of correlation coefficients do we usually see in real research? (In other words, what is the typical range of correlation coefficients?)

What does “big data” mean? What are the pros and cons of running analyses with “big data” sets?

Be able to perform and interpret any SPSS procedures that we do for this chapter.