Open AccessTHE TRANSITIVITY MISCONCEPTION OF PEARSON’S CORRELATION COEFFICIENT
Author(s) -
Ana Elisa Castro Sotos,
Stijn Vanhoof,
Wim Van Den Noortgate,
Patrick Onghena
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
statistics education research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.538
H-Index - 14
ISSN - 1570-1824
DOI - 10.52041/serj.v8i2.394
Subject(s) - transitive relation , pearson product moment correlation coefficient , psychology , relevance (law) , mathematics education , task (project management) , correlation , statistics , mathematics , management , geometry , combinatorics , political science , law , economics
Despite the relevance of correlational studies for most research domains, many students, teachers, and researchers alike hold misconceptions concerning the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. One of these, the transitivity misconception, has not yet been documented in a systematic way. This paper summarizes the first empirical study, using 279 university students, and examines the relationship between student-based and task-based factors and the appearance of this misconception. In particular, two task-based factors seemed to have a significant effect on its appearance. In addition, the respondents’ level of confidence in their answer to the transitivity item was significantly lower than for most other times. First published November 2009 at Statistics Education Research Journal: Archives