For her final project in statistics, a student decided to study how excitement about college varied among students, depending on how long they had been pursuing their degree. In a sample of students from her school, she found a 0.04 correlation between time spent in college and excitement about college.

The student concluded that time spent in college was unrelated to excitement about college.

a. Do you agree with the student’s conclusion based on the correlation coefficient?

Explain your answer.

b. Figure 14.33 shows the scatterplot of excitement about college by time spent at college in the statistics student’s sample. Does the scatterplot support the student’s conclusion of no relationship between the variables?

Explain your answer.

c. What lesson can the student learn from comparing the correlation coefficient for the relationship between time spent in college and excitement about college to the scatterplot?