Abstract
Correlation is a technique used to measure the strength or the degree of closeness of the linear association between two quantitative variables. Common misuses of this technique are highlighted. Linear regression is a technique used to identify a relationship between two continuous variables in mathematical equations, which could be used for comparison or estimation purposes. Specifically, regression analysis can provide answers for questions such as how much does one variable change for a given change in the other, how accurately can the value of one variable be predicted from the knowledge of the other. Regression does not give any indication of how good the association is while correlation provides a measure of how well a least-squares regression line fits the given set of data. The better the correlation, the closer the data points are to the regression line. In this tutorial article, the process of obtaining a linear regression relationship for a given set of bivariate data was described. The least square method to obtain the line which minimizes the total error between the data points and the regression line was employed and illustrated. The coefficient of determination, the ratio of the explained variation of the values of the independent variable to total variation, was described. Finally, the process of calculating confidence and prediction interval was reviewed and demonstrated.
