Duffy's research addresses the relationships among amount of practice time, race times, and motivation for running in high school athletes. He measures motivation for running by a Likert scale.
-Given Duffy's research, which one of the following correlation coefficients should he use to analyze his data?
A) Kendall's tau
B) Spearman's rho
C) Pearson r
D) Phi coefficient

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Pearson r is the appropriate correlation coefficient to analyze the relationship between two continuous variables, such as practice time and race times, measured on interval or ratio scales. Likert scale data can also be treated as continuous variables and analyzed using Pearson r. Kendall's tau and Spearman's rho are non-parametric correlation coefficients that are more appropriate for ordinal data, which Likert scales can also be classified as. Phi coefficient is used for analyzing the relationship between two categorical variables.

Duffy's Research Addresses the Relationships Among Amount of Practice Time