What is the purpose of the correlation coefficient How would

What is the purpose of the correlation coefficient? How would you interpret the values?

Solution

The correlation coefficient measures how linear the relationship is between two variables, and its direction, whether it is positively or negatively sloped.

The closer the absolute value of the correlation is to 1, the more linear it is. The closer it is to 0, the more insignificant the linear relationship is.

A positive correlation means that x increases with y; a negative correlation means x decreases with increasing y.