Suppose that I find a correlation between people who like Chipotle and people who like Starbucks. The correlation coefficient is $ r = 0.27 $.

What does this correlation mean in words?

A) There is a positive relationship between liking Chipotle and liking Starbucks.
B) There is a negative relationship between liking Chipotle and liking Starbucks.
C) There is no relationship between liking Chipotle and liking Starbucks.
D) There is a perfect relationship between liking Chipotle and liking Starbucks.

The correlation coefficient of r = 0.27 indicates a positive but weak relationship between liking Chipotle and liking Starbucks, where a tendency exists but is not strongly pronounced.

Explanation:

The correlation coefficient, represented by r, gives us information about the direction and strength of the relationship between two variables. A correlation coefficient of r = 0.27 indicates that there is a positive but weak relationship between the two variables—liking Chipotle and liking Starbucks. This means that, to some extent, people who like Chipotle also tend to like Starbucks, but this trend is not very strong. The positive direction of the correlation is shown by the positive sign of r, whereas the strength, which is fairly weak, is indicated by the value being closer to 0 than to 1.