The Transitivity Misconception of Pearson's Correlation Coefficient


Authors: 
Ana Elisa Castro Sotos, Stijn Vanhoof, Wim Van Den Noortgate, Patrick Onghena
Volume: 
8(2)
Pages: 
Online
Year: 
2009
Publisher: 
Statistics Education Research Journal
URL: 
http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/serj/SERJ8(2)_Sotos.htm
Abstract: 

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.

The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education