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Inferences About The Skipped Correlation Coefficient: Dealing With Heteroscedasticity And Non-Normality, Rand Wilcox

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

A common goal is testing the hypothesis that Pearson’s correlation is zero and typically this is done based on Student’s T test. There are, however, several well-known concerns. First, Student’s T is sensitive to heteroscedasticity. That is, when it rejects, it is reasonable to conclude that there is dependence, but in terms of making a decision about the strength of the association, it is unsatisfactory. Second, Pearson’s correlation is not robust: it can poorly reflect the strength of the association. Even a single outlier can have a tremendous impact on the usual estimate of Pearson’s correlation, which can result in …