
21Introduction to Research in Social and Behavioral Sciences
in twogroups will generally produce a higher correlation coefcient than
small differences in scores or values for individuals in two groups. This is
true because individuals in groups with large differences will retain their
rank within a group despite small changes in individual scores. For example,
two groups of college freshmen could earn very different scores on the same
sociology test. Perhaps one group was taught in a traditional classroom set-
ting and the other was taught via distance education.
The same relationship is not true for individuals in a group with small
difference ...