Question

​suppose that dr. Poonnamalee finds a correlation of +.68 between the amount of humor professors use and the grades that students earn in their classes. What can he appropriately conclude from this finding?

Answer 1

Suppose that Dr. Poonnamalee finds a correlation of +.68 between the amount of humor professors use and the grades that students earn in their classes. He can conclude that correlation does not imply causality.

Answer 2

Correlation coefficients are ranged between -1 and 1. The example presents a correlation coefficient of 0.68, which indicates a quite large and positive correlation.

Positive correlation measures the likelihood of two actions taking place together. In this case it indicates that using humour and good grades had been observed together 68 times out of 100.

Correlation does not imply causality. Therefore we do not have enough information to conclude that using humour in class actually causes the existence of better grades.