Research Methods for Sport and Physical Activity

Table of critical values for

Pearson's r: Compare your obtained correlation coefficient

against the critical values in the table, taking into

account your degrees of freedom (d.f.= the

number of pairs of scores, minus 2).

Example: suppose I had correlated the age and

height of 30 people and obtained an r of .45. To

see how likely an r of this size is to have

occurred by chance, use the table. I have 30-2 =

28 d.f. My obtained r is larger than .306, .361

and .423, but NOT equal to or larger than .463.

Therefore I conclude that an r as large as mine is

likely to occur by chance with a p < .02.

Critical values of Pearson's r:

(For a two-tailed test:)

df: 0.1 0.05 0.02 0.01

1 .988 .997 .9995 .9999

2 .9 .95 .98 .99

3 .805 .878 .934 .959

4 .729 .811 .882 .917

5 .669 .754 .833 .874

6 .622 .707 .789 .834

7 .582 .666 .75 .798

8 .549 .632 .716 .765

9 .521 .602 .685 .735

10 .497 .576 .658 .708

11 .476 .553 .634 .684

12 .458 .532 .612 .661

13 .441 .514 .592 .641

14 .426 .497 .574 .623

15 .412 .482 .558 .606

16 .4 .468 .542 .59

17 .389 .456 .528 .575

18 .378 .444 .516 .561

19 .369 .433 .503 .549

20 .36 .423 .492 .537

21 .352 .413 .482 .526

22 .344 .404 .472 .515

23 .337 .396 .462 .505

24 .33 .388 .453 .496

25 .323 .381 .445 .487

d.f.: 0.1 0.05 0.02 0.01

26 .317 .374 .437 .479

27 .311 .367 .43 .471

28 .306 .361 .423 .463

29 .301 .355 .416 .456

30 .296 .349 .409 .449

35 .275 .325 .381 .418

40 .257 .304 .358 .393

45 .243 .288 .338 .372

50 .231 .273 .322 .354

60 .211 .25 .295 .325

70 .195 .232 .274 .303

80 .183 .217 .256 .283

90 .173 .205 .242 .267

100 .164 .195 .23 .254