Pub. date: 2007 | Online Pub. Date: September 15, 2007 | DOI:
10.4135/9781412952651 | Print ISBN: 9781412924702 | Online ISBN:
9781412952651| Publisher:SAGE Publications, Inc.About this
encyclopedia Measures of Association/Correlation Coefficient
Ronald S. Landis In many situations, researchers are interested
in evaluating the relationship between variables of interest.
Such associations are important for testing theories and
hypotheses in which changes in one variable are tied to changes
in another. In other words, is an increase in one variable
associated with a systematic increase or decrease in the other?
The most frequently reported measure of association within
industrial and organizational psychology is the correlation
coefficient ( r ). Correlation is a standardized index of the
extent to which two sets of scores vary together. As an index,
correlation can vary between −1.00 (i.e., a perfect negative
relationship) and +1.00 (i.e., a perfect positive relationship).
Correlations near zero indicate the a