Resarch Question .... Is there a relationship between age and weight loss?

Research Setting .... You are studying a group of 50 people in an exercise class. The class has a fairly even distribution of genders and ages from 20 to 60. All the people have participated in the class for 30 weeks, and they may have lost weight in the process. You measured their weight at the beginning of the program and at the end of 30 weeks. You wonder if age is correlated with change in weight. You hypothesize that the younger a person is the greater will be his/her weight loss. Your data file contains two variables (age, and weight loss) for 50 subjects.

Study the part of your analysis page dealing with correlation, then answer the questions below. Your answers to these questions form your interpretation and conclusions.

1. Describe your subjective impressions from the overall mean weight loss, and the scatter plot and regression line.
2. What is the correlation value? What standard are you using to decide if it is significant? Does it indicate a significant correlation? If the correlation is significant, is the relationship weak, strong or very strong? Further information about the interpretation of correlations is found in the Whole Art of Deduction. You will need to use Table 1 in the Correlation chapter of the Whole Art of Deduction to see if the correlation value in your data indicates a significant correlation.
3. What is your conclusion about the hypothesis? Is it supported or not? Do you feel the study has fully answered the research question?

Think through your answers to these questions. In Step 5 are directions on how to write your report and submit it to your instructor for credit.