Korrelierte

Korrelierte is a form of the German verb korrelieren, which means to exhibit a correlation between two or more variables. In statistical language, to korrelieren means that changes in one variable are associated with changes in another variable, often in a predictable direction. The word korrelierte is the simple past tense (Präteritum) form, used to describe findings after data collection or in historical narration. For example, Die Messwerte korrelierten positiv miteinander.

In scientific writing, korrelieren is used to report relationships between variables and to discuss the strength and direction of association. The noun related to this concept is Korrelation, and common quantitative measures of correlation include Pearson's r for linear relationships and Spearman's rho for monotonic relationships. It is important to distinguish correlation from causation: two variables can correlate without one causing the other.

The term is widely used across disciplines such as psychology, biology, economics, and social sciences, where researchers describe observed relationships in data sets. While korrelierte conveys that a relationship was observed in the data, researchers often supplement it with statistical significance tests and confidence intervals to assess the reliability of the correlation.

Etymologically, korrelieren derives from the concept of correlation, with roots in Latin through the German linguistic tradition. In German-language texts, korrelierte appears alongside other verb forms to convey the temporal aspect of observed associations.