Question

finding the strength of a correlation
over five different weeks, lina tracked the hours she spent exercising and the hours she spent playing video games. what is the strength of the correlation between the hours spent exercising and the hours spent playing video games?
weak negative correlation
moderate negative correlation
weak positive correlation
moderate positive correlation

Explanation:

Step1: Analyze the trend

As the hours spent exercising (independent variable) increases, the hours spent playing video games (dependent variable) generally decreases. So, it is a negative correlation.

Step2: Check the strength

The data points do not show a very tight - clustered pattern around an imaginary line of best fit. A moderate negative correlation would have a more consistent and closer - to - linear decrease. Here, the decrease is not very consistent (e.g., from \(2\) hours of exercise (\(16\) video - game hours) to \(4\) hours of exercise, video - game hours go from \(16\) to \(7\) (a big drop), then to \(3\) hours of exercise, video - game hours are \(5\) (a smaller increase in exercise but a bigger drop in video - game hours compared to the previous change), then to \(4\) hours of exercise, video - game hours are \(15\) (an increase in video - game hours with the same exercise hours as before), then to \(5\) hours of exercise, video - game hours are \(8\)).

Answer:

weak negative correlation