Pearson correlation coefficient

In statistics, the Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC), also known as Pearson's r, the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (PPMCC), or simply the unqualified correlation coefficient, is a correlation coefficient that measures linear correlation between two sets of data. It is the ratio between the covariance of two variables and the product of their standard deviations; thus, it is essentially a normalized measurement of the covariance, such that the result always has a value between −1 and 1. A key difference is that unlike covariance, this correlation coefficient does not have units, allowing comparison of the strength of the joint association between different pairs of random variables that do not necessarily have the same units. As with covariance itself, the measure can only reflect a linear correlation of variables, and ignores many other types of relationships or correlations. As a simple example, one would expect the age and height of a sample of children from a school to have a Pearson correlation coefficient significantly greater than 0, but less than 1 (as 1 would represent an unrealistically perfect correlation).