If they are a dichotomy (receding vs. not receding and green men vs. blue men) then the percentages are part of a two by two table and you can make such a table from the percentages (if you know the sample sizes). Compute chi-square. Chi-square over N is phi and this is identical to Pearson's correlation if you make the categories a pair of dummy variables. alan Alan C. Acock [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.orst.edu/dept/hdfs/acock/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ronny Richardson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, May 27, 2002 8:26 AM Subject: Can I Infer Correlation From Proportion?
> I was reading a medical report that gave some values as percentages. It > said something like 30 percent of all green men have receding hairlines > while only 5 percent of little blue men have receding hairlines. Is there > any way I infer anything like a correlation value from that? If not, how > would I approach significance testing? > > I'm thinking I might have to go to nonparametric statistics since none of > the values being measures (green membership, blue membership, receding > hairline) are interval scale. Rather, they are all yes/no nominal scale. > > > Ronny Richardson > > . > . > ================================================================= > Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the > problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: > . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . > ================================================================= . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
