Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Intellectual Capital

Simona Agoston et al.
homoscedasticity assumption is met. Therefore <strong>the</strong> next step in <strong>the</strong> analysis is <strong>the</strong> calculation <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>
two correlation coefficients (Table 2, 3).
Figure 1: Scatterplot diagram
Table 2: Pearson correlation coefficient
Knowledge transfer Index
Number <strong>of</strong> candidates
Table 3: Spearman correlation coefficient
Spearman's rho
index_ranked
stud_ranked
Knowledge transfer
Index Number <strong>of</strong> candidates
Pearson Correlation 1 -.918
Sig. (2-tailed) .028
N 5 5
Pearson Correlation -.918 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .028
N 5 5
index_ranked stud_ranked
Correlation Coefficient 1.000 -.900
Sig. (2-tailed) .037
N 5 5
Correlation Coefficient -.900 1.000
Sig. (2-tailed) .037 .
N 5 5
The correlation between <strong>the</strong> index <strong>of</strong> knowledge transfer and <strong>the</strong> number <strong>of</strong> candidates for <strong>the</strong>
programs <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> university in terms <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Pearson correlation coefficient is negative and statistically
significant (r = -0.918, p< .005). This means that as <strong>the</strong> value <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> index <strong>of</strong> knowledge transfer
increases, <strong>the</strong> number <strong>of</strong> students for <strong>the</strong> programs <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> university decreases. It is highly important
to note that this interpretation in no way implies causality — that increases in value <strong>of</strong> knowledge
transfer index caused decreases in <strong>the</strong> number <strong>of</strong> candidates for <strong>the</strong> programs <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> university. The
significant relationship merely indicates that <strong>the</strong> two variables covary.
The obtained Spearman rank-order coefficient (rho = -0.90, p < .005) is highly similar in magnitude
and direction to that in <strong>the</strong> Pearson correlation table (Table 2). Thus, similar to <strong>the</strong> Pearson
coefficient, <strong>the</strong> Spearman coefficient indicates that as <strong>the</strong> value <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> knowledge transfer index
increases <strong>the</strong> number <strong>of</strong> candidates for <strong>the</strong> programs <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> university decreases.
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