If the correlation between age and physical flexibility is -.68, what does this mean? How would this correlation look on a scatter diagram? What general shape would it have?

     A correlation is a description of a relationship between two variables (Aron, Aron, & Coupe, 2009). The relationship between two equal-interval numeric variables is described by a normal measure of a correlation (Aron, Aron, & Coupe, 2009). If indeed the correlation between age and physical flexibility is -.68, then this means that the older individual is he or she has less physical flexibility. This is considered a negative correlation. A negative correlation is a relation between two variables in which high scores on one go with low scores on the other (Aron, Aron, & Coupe, 2009). On a scatter diagram as for the horizontal axis and vertical axis, the horizontal axis represents age and the vertical axis represents physical flexibility. Therefore, with a correlation between age and physical flexibility of -.68 (negative correlation) the scatter diagram the dots would go downward starting from the left toward the right basically in a straight line. When a correlation is negative it slopes downward from left to the right basically in a straight line (Aron, Aron, & Coups, 2009). If this was a positive correlation then as for a scatter diagram the dots basically follow a straight line sloping up and from the left to the right (Aron, Aron, & Coups, 2009).

 Reference

Aron, A., Aron, E. N., & Coups, E. (2009). Statistics for psychology (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.