A researcher wants to investigate whether there is a relationship between annual company profit ($) and median annual salary paid by the company ($). The researcher collects data on a random sample of companies and after analyzing the data finds the p-value to be 0.56. Which of the following is an appropriate conclusion based on this p-value? A. There is a 56% chance that there is no relationship between annual company profit and median annual salary paid by the company.

B. There is a relationship between annual company profit and median annual salary paid by the company, and the corresponding value of the correlation coefficient is r = 0.56.

C. There is no relationship between annual company profit and median annual salary paid by the company.

D. There is not convincing evidence of a relationship between annual company profit and median annual salary paid by the company.

D. There is not convincing evidence of a relationship between annual company profit and median annual salary paid by the company.

Step-by-step explanation:

In this hypothesis test, the null hypothesis usually states that there is no relationship between the two variables in study.

In opposite, the claim that is being tested is the speculative hypothesis: that there is a significant relationship between both variables.

The researcher takes a sample and the P-value indicates the probability of getting that sample by pure chance if the null hypothesis is true.

Then, a very small P-value, below the significance level, indicates that the sample is very unusual if the null hypothesis is true, what gives evidence to reject the null hypothesis.

In this case, a P-value of 0.56 indicates that the sample is not unusual if the null hypothesis is true, so it gives no support to the claim that the null hypothesis is false and that there exists a relationship between the two variables in study.