Edexcel S3 2006 January — Question 7

Exam BoardEdexcel
ModuleS3 (Statistics 3)
Year2006
SessionJanuary
TopicHypothesis test of Spearman’s rank correlation coefficien

7. The numbers of deaths from pneumoconiosis and lung cancer in a developing country are given in the table.
Age group (years)20-2930-3940-4950-5960-6970 and over
Deaths from pneumoconiosis (1000s)12.55.918.519.431.231.0
Deaths from lung cancer (1000s)3.79.010.219.013.018.0
The correlation between the number of deaths in the different age groups for each disease is to be investigated.
  1. Give one reason why Spearman's rank correlation coefficient should be used.
  2. Calculate Spearman's rank correlation coefficient for these data.
  3. Use a suitable test, at the \(5 \%\) significance level, to interpret your result. State your hypotheses clearly.
    (5)