Understanding Pearson r Correlation

In this video, we're going to talk about correlation--in particular, the Pearson r statistic. We're going to look at how correlation is a measure of how two numbers are related and then how that applies to our studies in education. First of all, it makes most sense to go ahead and give credit where credit is due. The Pearson r statistic, the one that we're going to be talking about so much in this video was developed by Karl Pearson. Karl Pearson is a renowned statistician. In fact, he is a person that lots of people give credit to for inventing the whole study of modern statistics. Karl Pearson is the one who had developed this idea, and so it bears his name. It's called the Pearson r statistic. It's a measure of correlation, which is to say how two different sets of numbers are related to each other. Let's jump right in and start talking about the Pearson r statistic, this particular statistic is a number or a metric that tells us two different things: the strength of relationship between two sets of numbers and also the direction of the relationship.