Although State is a stronger field than Liberty Bell, both Devon Peterson and Emma Gee earned the distinction of having a slightly higher overall place at State than at Liberty Bell this fall. Photo by Alan Versaw.
Knowing what to make of the girls placings at State for 2014 relative to the girls placings at Liberty Bell is a bit of an exercise in the art of interpretation. On a straight-up analysis, the correlation between the two is almost non-existent (r = .08). But, if you remove the two outlying observations of Kaleigh Kroeker and Jordyn Colter, the correlation jumps to the highest level we've seen yet in any of these analyses (r = .70).
It's beyond dispute that the two outlying observations are highly influential. Their position toward the left-end of the scatterplot of placings dictates that. So, we ask the question, "Are the data linear in nature or not?" And, the answer to that question depends on how you treat the data. Which way is right...
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