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Sage Social Science Thesaurus

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... > inquiry and research > quantitative research > quantitative data analysis > time-series analysis > serial correlation

... > research methods and evaluation > quantitative research > quantitative data analysis > time-series analysis > serial correlation

Preferred term

serial correlation

Definition

Serial correlation exists when successive values of a time-series process exhibit nonzero covariances. The term serial correlation is often used synonymously with autocorrelation, which refers to the more general case of correlation with self and may be either over time, as when the president's approval rating today is correlated with his approval rating yesterday (serial correlation), or across space, as when gang membership is correlated with physical distance of residence from an inner city (spatial correlation). [Source: The SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods; Serial Correlation]

Broader concept

time-series analysis

Belongs to group

methods

URI

https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/serial_correlation

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