Lesson Plan: Hypothesis Testing of the Correlation Coefficient
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to use a hypothesis test to determine if two variables have a linear correlation or not.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- determine the null and alternative hypotheses for no correlation and whether the test is one-tailed or two-tailed,
- determine the critical value of needed from a table based on the significance level required for the test,
- find Pearson’s correlation coefficient (using the table function on a calculator) to compare it with the critical value,
- use the critical value to ascertain whether to accept or reject the null hypothesis and use this to conclude whether two variables are linearly correlated or not.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- what a hypothesis test is in general, including null and alternative hypotheses, critical values, and significance levels,
- correlation,
- how to calculate Pearson’s correlation coefficient.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- how to conduct hypothesis tests for means of normal distributions or other types of hypothesis tests,
- calculating Pearson’s correlation coefficient using the formula.