Ten people were chosen at random and surveyed. The table below shows the number hours per week that the participants exercise (X) and the number of pounds that they are overweight (Y).
Time Spent Working Out per Week
(in hours) lbs Overweight
X Y
0.5 20
1 28
1.5 8
2 15
2.5 8
3 5
3.5 2
4 2
4.5 0
5 1
Using technology, compute the correlation coefficient, r, and determine if there is a correlation between the variables.
A.
r -0.87 ; strong correlation
B.
r 0.87 ; weak correlation
C.
r 0.53 ; strong correlation
D.
r -0.53 ; weak correlation
A. r -0.87 ; strong correlation
The correlation coefficient, r, is -0.87 which indicates a strong negative correlation between the number of hours spent working out per week and the number of pounds overweight. This means that as the number of hours spent working out per week increases, the number of pounds overweight decreases.