I need to repeat:

Given a non-significant regression relationship between two variables, indicating any regression line at all is meaningless. In fact it is actively misleading, making you think that there may be a relationship. The slope of such a line has no meaning and henceforth is not useful for any interpretation.

The broad regression area that Robert indicates in his two diagrams are also not useful at all. If one were to plot a pink area of reliability, then a 1 standard deviation line is also not useful because it does not allow any reliable interpretation of the slope. If one were to do anything like this, one needs to indicate the 95% reliability area around the regression line, not a 1-sd line. The 1-sd line does not correspond to the statistical calculation that was done to generate the line. And then only individuals with some background in statistics would be able to interpret the 95% reliability area.

Honestly, my recommendation is not to show any regression line if there is not a statistically significant trend.

However, Dirk is correct in that it would help very much is some information about the regression line is shown. Probably something like "Linear regression line". If users could tolerate the statistical jargon, one could add the statistical probability, e.g. "p < 0.01".

I hope this makes sense???

Kind regards,

willem



--
This message and attachments are subject to a disclaimer.

Please refer to 
http://upnet.up.ac.za/services/it/documentation/docs/004167.pdf <http://upnet.up.ac.za/services/it/documentation/docs/004167.pdf> for full details.
_______________________________________________
subsurface mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.subsurface-divelog.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/subsurface

Reply via email to