Curriculum
Statistics — Third Secondary
Unit 1: Correlation and Regression
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Unit 2: Advanced Statistical Measures
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Unit 3: Probability
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Unit 4: Random Variables
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Unit 5: The Normal Distribution
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Text lesson
Correlation
Correlation
Correlation does not mean causation
Correlation does not mean causation
- A strong correlation between two variables does not prove that one causes the other.
- Both variables may be affected by a third factor.
- For example, ice cream sales and drowning cases both rise in summer.
- Ice cream does not cause drowning; the hot weather is the common cause.
- Also, r measures only the strength and direction of a linear correlation.
- It does not give the slope of the relationship and it is not used to predict a specific value.
- Predicting values is the topic of the next lesson, regression.
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