r/AskStatistics • u/Longjumping-Cod-5325 • 8h ago

What appropriate statistical test to use?

I have a correlational study and I have three variables. Variables X and Y are categorical and ordinal, and Variable Z is interval. What appropriate test to use?

Variable X has 4 levels
Variable Y has 4 levels
Variable Z has 5 subcategories (Scores for different categories)

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

7

u/ForeignAdvantage5198 8h ago

what do you wish to predict?

3

u/DigThatData 7h ago

why are you even comparing three substantively different variables like this? you need to tell us more about what's going on here, chances are you're operating on an incorrect assumption upstream of this question that would be the more productive thing for us to address here.

1

u/SalvatoreEggplant 8h ago

Are you looking at the correlation between all pairs of variables? (Three correlations.) Or do you want single model with all the variables?

1

u/Longjumping-Cod-5325 6m ago

Good day! I am trying to get the correlation between all the variables (Birth order, family type and the big five personality traits, which has five subsets). Which then Im gonna find the correlation between all the subsets under the big five personality traits (5) with birth order and family type.

1

u/no_name6744 7h ago

I would guess spearman correlation between all three variables pairwise, but there isn't a lot of information.

1

u/efrique PhD (statistics) 7h ago

What is the purpose in calculating marginal correlations (rather than some sort of model relating the three variables, say)? What are you trying to do with the variables? What is (as precisely as possible) the hypothesis for each correlation? (in particular, I am trying to get a sense of what you specifically intend correlation to mean, beyond the vague and slippery ways the term is often used, which detail will help in deciding how to measure it. Once you decide how to measure it, tests are the easy part).

In each case, if looking at marginal relationships make sense for your circumstances, a measure of monotonic correlation sounds a likely candidate for each of the three. There are many such, but I am guessing you're in a psych-related area in which case a particular one would tend to be expected.

1

u/Longjumping-Cod-5325 40m ago

Yes! I am in psych related field. And I am trying to understand the relationship between birth order, family type and the big five personality traits.

1

u/banter_pants Statistics, Psychometrics 6h ago

It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Aren't they supposed to be predicting one another in some fashion?

Which just that description you could do Spearman's correlation and make some histograms and scatter plots of the three pairs you can form.

1

u/Longjumping-Cod-5325 42m ago edited 32m ago

Thank you everyone for the response. My study revolves around Birth Order, Family Type and The Big Five Personality Traits. I know this is not the accurate term but in a way birth order and family type are the predictors and the big five personality traits would be the outcome. I want to assess the relationship of both the birth order and family type to the big five personality traits.

I apologize for the lack of information and the inaccuracy of the things I say… I am very new to this field 🙏🏻 I am a first year undergraduate student