On a correlation matrix, amount of personal supervision has a -0.10 beside it and the age of caregiver is the corresponding variable. does this mean that amount of personal supervision is negatively influenced by caregiver's age?
2006-11-10 14:56:26 · 1 answers · asked by marta s 1 in Social Science ➔ Economics
Correlation never tells you anything about causation or why two things tend to happen at the same time. Your matrix says that on average, people who are older tend to have less personal supervision in your sample.
The coefficient of -0.1 may not be statistically significant, in which case it could just be a statistical blip that is unemaningful. The conclusion that you reach is one possible interpretation of your result. However, it would be just as legitimate to conclude that a caregiver's age is negatively correlated with the amount of supervision they get. ie the more supervision someone gets, the younger they tend to be. Therefore, you need to combine common sense with your result. Does it make sense to you that younger caregivers will require more supervision (perhaps because they are probably less experienced and less senior in their organisations)?
2006-11-12 14:52:13 · answer #1 · answered by eco101 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋