----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Spicker" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: How should we present statistics?
Perhaps it's just my crabby nature, but the rules I've been thinking of
are all "don'ts".
(a) Don't confuse statistical significance with strength of
association. When most people talk about strength of association
between two variables, they mean that changes in one variable have an
appreciably large impact on the other, not that there's a good
statistical fit. It's the slope of the regression line that really
matters, rather than the correlation coefficient.
Paul
You're not quite right here. If you scale the variables, you will change the
slope but not the correlation. Statistical significance of "slope = 0" is
important, and independent of scale. "Good statistical fit" is a slightly
different matter.
Quentin
Dr Quentin L Burrell
Isle of Man International Business School
The Nunnery
Old Castletown Road
Douglas
Isle of Man IM9 4EX
via United Kingdom
www.ibs.ac.im
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