The Human Resources department of a company tracks employee sick day usage to see if there are patterns. One of the HR representatives decides to check employee sick day usage against outside to check employee sick day usage against outside temperature. He compiles the information for the eimpl,oyees' sick day usage and temperature in the scatterplot above. Which of the following conclusion can he draw based on this data ?

Options

A. There is no relationship between the number of sick days used by employees in general and outside temperature.
B. There is no relationship between the number of sick days used by this company's employees and outside temperature.
C. No conclusions can be drawn about the number of sick days used by this company,s employees and outside temperature.
D. There is a relationship, but not a causal link, between the number of sick days used by this company's employees and outside temperature.

Answer

B

Explanation

There are two things to keep in mind for a question like this: correlation does not prove causatin, and as a general rule, conclusions can be drawn only about the population studide, not about all populations. The population studied, not about all populations. The population in the study is only the employees at the company, not all employees in general, so eliminate (A). The data points are scattered and do not form any discernible pattern. This means there is no correlation, which is another way of saying the two variables aren't related, so you can eliminate (D). You can also eliminate (C ) because the HR representative is able to draw a conclusion-that there is no relationship. Therefore, (B ) is correct.