Table of Contents
Corrplot is a function in R that allows users to create a correlation matrix, which is a table that displays the correlation coefficients between multiple variables. To use corrplot, the user first needs to load the package and import the data set containing the variables of interest. Then, they can use the corrplot function to generate a visual representation of the correlation matrix, with options to customize the plot and add labels. This allows for a quick and easy way to identify relationships between variables and can assist in data analysis and decision making.
You can use the corrplot function from the corrplot package in R to create a correlation matrix for a data frame.
This function offers a of arguments you can use to customize the correlation matrix, but here are some of the most common ways to use it:
Method 1: Create Correlation Matrix with Circles Inside Matrix
library(corrplot) #create correlation matrix with circles shown inside matrix corrplot(cor(df))
Method 2: Create Correlation Matrix with Variables in Alphabetical Order
library(corrplot) #create correlation matrix with variables in alphabetical order corrplot(cor(df), order='alphabet')
Method 3: Create Correlation Matrix with Coefficients Inside Matrix
library(corrplot) #create correlation matrix with correlation coefficients shown inside matrix corrplot(cor(df), method='number')
Method 4: Create Correlation Matrix with Shaded Cells Inside Matrix
library(corrplot) #create correlation matrix with shaded cells inside matrix corrplot(cor(df), method='color')
The following examples show how to use each method in practice with the following data frame in R that contains information about various basketball players:
#create data frame
df <- data.frame(assists=c(4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10),
rebounds=c(12, 14, 13, 7, 8, 8, 9, 13),
points=c(22, 24, 26, 26, 29, 32, 20, 14),
steals=c(5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 5, 3, 4))
#view data frame
df
assists rebounds points steals
1 4 12 22 5
2 5 14 24 6
3 5 13 26 7
4 6 7 26 7
5 7 8 29 8
6 8 8 32 5
7 8 9 20 3
8 10 13 14 4
Example 1: Create Correlation Matrix with Circles Inside Matrix
We can use the following syntax to create a correlation matrix that contains circles inside the matrix in which the colors indicate the sign of the correlation coefficient and the size represents the strength of the correlation:
library(corrplot)
#create correlation matrix with circles shown inside matrix
corrplot(cor(df))
Example 2: Create Correlation Matrix with Variables in Alphabetical Order
library(corrplot)
#create correlation matrix with variables in alphabetical order
corrplot(cor(df), order='alphabet')
Example 3: Create Correlation Matrix with Coefficients Inside Matrix
We can use the method argument to specify that we’d like to create a correlation matrix with the correlation coefficients displayed inside the matrix:
library(corrplot)
#create correlation matrix with correlation coefficients shown inside matrix
corrplot(cor(df), method='number')
Example 4: Create Correlation Matrix with Shaded Cells Inside Matrix
We can use the method argument to specify that we’d like to create a correlation matrix with shaded cells displayed inside the matrix:
library(corrplot)
#create correlation matrix with shaded cells inside matrix
corrplot(cor(df), method='color')
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in R: