Correlation, Predication, Confidence, and Errors

This section examines correlation, estimating confidence, and margin of errors. Correlation is an important concept to understand, since often what is found in many areas of research is not cause, but a relationship that exists among variables. In chapter seven you will come to understand the importance of what correlation is and what it is not. You will also be introduced to prediction through some introductory regression analysis. This is important for anticipating results in research, and in many other areas of life.

Chapter eight explores confidence intervals and margins of error, and how to apply these statistics to measurements. No measurement is perfect. Therefore it becomes imperative that individuals understand that what is found in samples are not exact duplications of what is found in the population. However, we need to know how confident we are in the posted results, how close they are to those found in the population, and how much error we think is statistically possible in our results.