Lecture Note 7 - Part 1
Lecture Note 7 - Part 1
In many field researchers are interested in identifying and assessing relationship among
variables. In these studies, it is often possible to distinguish two main types of variables, namely
response variables and predictor variables.
By predictor variables that can either be set to a desired value or else take values that can
be observed but not controllable. As a result of changes that are made or taken place in these
predictor variables an effect is transmitted to the response variables.
The objective of most studies is to assess the relationship between the response variable
and one or more independent variables.
Regression analysis is a statistical tool for evaluating the relationship between one or more
predictor variables to a single continuous response variable.
Measuring relationship between variables
When assessing the relationship between two variables the simplest method is to be taken
at their scatter plot. And one could also quantify the association by using sample correlation
coefficient.
∑𝑛𝑖=1(𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥̅ )(𝑦𝑖 − 𝑦̅)
𝑟=
√∑𝑛𝑖=1(𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥̅ )2 ∑𝑛𝑖=1(𝑦𝑖 − 𝑦̅)2
However, the correlation coefficient is not sufficient to indicate how two variables are related or
the nature of the relationship and it will not provide information to predict values of one variable
given the other variable. This is where regression analysis and models become useful.
Example: A clothing manufacturer collected the following data on the age, 𝑥 (months) and the
maintenance cost, 𝑦 (£) of his sewing machines.
Machine A B C D E F G H I J K
Age (𝑥) 13 75 64 52 90 15 35 82 25 46 50
Maintenance 24 144 110 63 240 20 40 180 42 50 92
cost (𝑦)