text: what is a good symbol to show an association with something? like the associative property in math, the ( ) associate with the numbers . the degree of association between two variables is shown by the correlation coefficient (r). this can vary from zero for no correlation, to 1 for perfect correlation. note that this coefficient can be either positive or negative.  the "significance" of the coefficient, ie the probability of it being due to chance, can be assessed by reference to tables which are available.