1.1. Researchers were interested in the spatial awareness skills of motorists. They decided to investigate a possible relationship between different aspects of spatial awareness. Motorists who had between ten and twelve years of driving experience and held a clean driving licence with no penalty points were asked to complete two sets of tasks.

Set 1: To follow a series of instructions and using a map, to identify various locations correctly. This provided a map reading score for each motorist with a maximum score of 20.

Set 2: To complete a series of practical driving tasks accurately. This involved tasks such as driving between cones, driving within lines and parking inside designated spaces. Each motorist was observed completing the Set 2 tasks by a single trained observer who rated each performance by giving the driver a rating out of 10.

The following results were obtained.

Table 1: The map reading scores and driver ratings of motorists

The researchers decided to analyse the data using a Spearman’s rho test. Explain why this is a suitable choice of test for this investigation.

After analysis of the data the researchers obtained a calculated value of rs= 0.808.

Using the information in Table 2 above, what conclusion can the researchers draw about the relationship between the map reading and driving skills of the motorists? Explain your answer.