Statistics Regression Project

By Joseph Higgins

The purpose of my study was to compare the height of people to the resting pulse
rate of their hearts. The independent variable in my study was height. The dependent
variable in the study was their resting pulse rates. Height was measured in inches, and
resting pulse rates were measured in beats per minute. My hypothesis about the
correlation between height and resting pulse rate is that the taller a person is the higher I
thought their resting pulse rate would be. I felt this way since taller people have longer
veins and arteries and presumed that caused the heart to work harder. I gathered my
sample from a friend that works in a local hospital emergency room. The population
used was the patients of that emergency room.

Data- (63,68),(65.7,80),(63.8,84),(68.9,80),(72.8,80), (63.8, 80), (68.1, 92), (65.7, 92),

(66.9, 80), (66.9, 80), (64.2, 80), (62.2, 80), (61.8, 80), (63, 78), (66.9, 90), (69.7, 80),
(65.4, 72), (66.9, 80), (58.3, 82), (68.9, 76), (63, 84), (60.2, 70), (72.8, 80), (65, 82),
(65, 84), (67.7, 116), (72.8, 80), (64.2, 95), (69.7, 80), (65, 76), (71.7, 100), (63.8, 88),
(67.7, 90), (69.7, 90), (66.1, 90), (70.1, 80), (71.7, 76), (65.7, 80), (66.9, 84), (63, 80),
(71.7, 80), (66.1, 80), (61, 80), (68.9,104), (66.1, 80), (70.9, 68), (68.9, 84), (57.1, 64),
(66.9, 84), (68.9, 72).

Height vs Pulse Rate

120
115 ŷ= 0.5324x + 46.937
Pulse Rate per Minute

110 R2 = 0.0475
105
100
95 Series1
90 (x-bar, y-bar)
85 Linear (Series1)
80
75
70
65
60
50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74
Height in Inches

Explanation :
The correlation between my data is positive. I found that often times taller people had
higher resting pulse rates, but as this was not always the case I found the relationship
weak.
The result for the correlation coefficient is r = .217483, which suggests a very weak
strength and direction of the linear correlation. As the height increases it does not
necessarily accompany a higher resting heart rate. The correlation coefficient for a
sample size of 50 is at α = 0.05, is .279, and at α = 0.01, is .361. At the 5% significance
level there is not enough evidence that the height of a person would be significant enough
to equal a higher resting pulse rate; because .216<.279. Likewise, there is not enough
evidence at the 1% level that the height of a person would be significant enough to equal
a higher resting pulse rate; because .216<.361. The coefficient of determination is r² = .
0475. This means that 4.75% of the variation of y can be explained by the relationship
between x and y. The remaining 95.25% of the variation is unexplained and is likely due
to other factors or to sampling error. The equation of the regression line is ŷ = 0.5324x +
46.937; the slope indicates that as the height increase that the hearts’ resting pulse rate
would increase .5324 beats per minute, and the y intercept when at a height of 0’’ would
be 46.937 beats per minute when in a resting state. The outliers are listed at: (67.7,116),
(65.78,92),(66.9,90),(67.7,90),(60.2,70),(63,68),(68.9,72) ,(70.1,80),(69.7,80),(72.8,80),
this might be because I was only taking into account the height of a person and the
resting pulse per minute, and not taking into account the general health of the person. The
Extrapolate data point for example would be if I pick someone that’s 82’’ tall, which is
currently out of my data set; so ŷ = 0.5324(82) + 46.937 = 90.48 beats per minutes when
at a resting state. The interpolate data point for example would be if I pick someone in
my data, so 67.7 for my x-value would be ŷ = 0.5324(67.7) + 46.937 = 82.901 which
would be 83 beats per minute when at a resting state. The data does not match the value
that was recorded for that data set y = 116.

In conclusion, my data did not support my hypothesis. In the beginning I thought

that it would be a causal relationship based from what I learned in anatomy, thinking the
length of the veins would contribute to a higher heart rate. I thought taller people having
longer veins would always have a higher heart rate also. Confounding variables that
might have affected my data for this correlation study were: viscosity of the blood, and
peripheral resistance; these factors could add in impedance to the flow of blood due to
friction between the blood and the walls of the vessels. Some other confounding variables
that were not taken into consideration with this study were the general health overall of
the subjects. For example, if a person exercises, or if they have other health risks like
hypertension that would lead to a higher resting pulse rate. Next, the reason why they
went to the ER in the first place was not taken into account, this could have also affected
the resting pulse rate of a person if they were in the ER for a condition that is
symptomatic of higher rates. One bias that could have been present in this study would
be “undercoverage” since the study did not include the “whole” population of the
hospital. The study did include the whole population for one night of the ER room. The
non-response is the other bias that could have been present, due to a nurse physically
taking the peoples’ heights, and resting pulse rates. The response bias would not have
affected this study, due to the fact that people therefore could not lie about their height, or
their resting heart rate since the nurses and machines were measuring the information.
Lastly, there weren’t any leading questions to cause a bias about the peoples’ heights and
their resting pulse rates.