a-researcher-is-studying-the-relationship-between-hours-of-weekly-exercise-and-r

Question

A researcher is studying the relationship between hours of weekly exercise and resting heart rate (in beats per minute) among a group of adults. The data for 8 participants is shown below:

Data table showing weekly exercise hours and resting heart rates, indicating a strong negative correlation.

The correlation coefficient for the data is $r = - 0.99$ , indicating a strong negative linear relationship: more exercise is associated with a lower resting heart rate. The researcher decides to remove the data for the participant who exercised 1 hour per week and had a heart rate of $82$ . How would removing this data point most likely affect the correlation coefficient $r$ ?

Accepted Answer

The value of $r$ becomes slightly less negative because a data point that supported the trend was removed.

Answer

The value of $r$ stays exactly the same, because only one point was removed.

Answer

The value of $r$ becomes more negative because removing data always strengthens the correlation.

Answer

The value of $r$ increases to $0$ because the removed point caused all the variation.