A researcher wants to measure the degree of association between two variables, education and product knowledge. Education is measured by asking respondents to choose from one of the four options: less than high school, high school, some college, college graduate. Product knowledge is measured by asking respondents to pick from one of the three options: no knowledge, some knowledge, very knowledgeable. Given this information, which of the following measures would be appropriate?
A)Chi-square test
B)Pearson correlation coefficient
C)Coefficient of determination
D)Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient
E)Scatter plot

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The appropriate measure for determining the degree of association between two categorical variables is the Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient. This is because the variables are measured on an ordinal scale (categories with a meaningful order) rather than a numerical scale. The other options apply to continuous (numeric) variables.

A Researcher Wants to Measure the Degree of Association Between