Contingency table

Contingency table

A Contingency table also known as a cross tabulation or crosstab, is a type of table in a matrix format that displays the (multivariate) frequency distribution of the variables. They are heavily used in survey research, business intelligence, engineering, and scientific research. They provide a basic picture of the interrelation between two variables and can help find interactions between them.

Overview

The term Contingency table was first used by Karl Pearson. It is a way of representing and analyzing two and more variables simultaneously. The results are represented in a matrix format, making it easy to visualize the data.

Usage

Contingency tables are used in statistics to summarize data between two variables in a format that can be easily understood. They are used in a variety of fields, including machine learning, business analytics, and social sciences.

Construction

A Contingency table is constructed by listing the categories of one variable down the page, and the categories of the other variable across the page. The cell at the intersection of a row and column shows the count of the number of times a particular combination of variable outcomes occurred.

Interpretation

The interpretation of a Contingency table depends on the study and the data. However, in general, the larger the number in a cell of a contingency table, the more the variables are likely to be related.

See also

• Chi-squared test
• Pearson's chi-squared test
• Fisher's exact test
• Log-linear analysis
• Odds ratio
• Relative risk