Contingency Tables

• Chapters Seven, Sixteen, and Eighteen

• Chapter Seven
– Definition of Contingency Tables
– Basic Statistics
– SPSS program (Crosstabulation)
• Chapter Sixteen
– Basic Probability Theory Concepts
– Test of Hypothesis of Independence
 Contingency Tables (continued)
• Chapter Eighteen
– Measures of Association
– For nominal variables
– For ordinal variables
 Basic Empirical Situation
• Unit of data.
• Two nominal scales measured for each unit.
– Example: interview study, sex of respondent,
variable such as whether or not subject has a
cellular telephone.
– Objective is to compare males and females with
respect to what fraction have cellular
telephones.
 Crosstabulation of Data
• Prepare a data file for study.
– One record per subject.
– Three variables per record: subject ID, sex of
subject, and indicator variable of whether
subject has cellular telephone.
• SPSS analysis
– Statistics, summarize, crosstabs
• Basic information is the contingency table.
 Two Common Situations
• Hypothesized causal relation between
variables.

• No hypothesized causal relation.

 Hypothesized Causal Relation
• Classification of variables
– Independent variable is one hypothesized to be
cause. Example: sex of respondent.
– Dependent variable is hypothesized to be the effect.
Example: whether or not subject has cellular
telephone.
• Format convention
– Columns to categories of independent variable
– Rows to categories of dependent variable
 Association Study
• No hypothesized causal mechanism.
– Whether or not subject above median on verbal
SAT and whether or not above median on
quantitative SAT.
• No convention about assigning variables to
rows and columns.
 Contingency Table
• One column for each value of the column
variable; C is the number of columns.
• One row for each value of the row variable;
R is the number of rows.
• R x C contingency table.
 Contingency Table
• Each entry is the OBSERVED COUNT
O(i,j) of the number of units having the (i,j)
contingency.
• Column of marginal totals.
• Row of marginal totals.
 Example Contingency Table
(Hypothetical)
Own Cell Male Female Total
Telephone
Yes 60 80 140

No 140 120 260

Total 200 200 400

 Example Contingency Table
(Hypothetical)
• Entry 60 in the upper left hand corner means
that there were 60 male respondents who
owned a cellular telephone.
• ASSUME marginal totals are known:
• THEN, knowing entry of 60 means that you
can deduce all other entries.
• This 2 x 2 table has one degree of freedom.
• R x C table has (R-1)(C-1) degrees of freedom.
 Row and Column Percentages
• Natural to use percentages rather than raw counts.
– Remember that you want to use these numbers for
comparison purposes.
– The term “rate” is often used to refer to a percentage
or probability.
• Can ask for column percentages, row
percentages, or both.
– Percentage in the direction of the independent variable
(usually the column).
 Relation of Percentages to
Probabilities
• ASSUME that the column variable is the
independent variable.
• THEN the column percentages are estimates
of the conditional probabilities given the
setting of the independent variable.
• The basic questions revolve around whether or
not the conditional distributions are the same
for all settings of the independent variable.
 Bar Charts
• Graphical means of presenting data.
• SPSS analysis
– Graphs, bar chart.
• Can use either count scale or percentage
scale (prefer percentage scale).
• Can have bars side by side or stacked.
 Generalization of the R x C
contingency table
• Can have three or more variables to classify
each subject. These are called “layers”.
– In example, can add whether respondent is
student in college or student in high school.
 Chapter Sixteen: Comparing
Observed and Expected Counts
• Basic hypothesis
• Definitions of expected counts.
• Chi-squared test of independence.
 Basic Hypothesis
• ASSUME column variable is the
independent variable.
• Hypothesis is independence.
• That is, the conditional distribution in any
column is the same as the conditional
distribution in any other column.
 Expected Count
• Basic idea is proportional allocation of
observations in a column based on column
total.
• Expected count in (i, j ) contingency =
E(i,j)= total number in column j *total
number in row i/total number in table.
• Expected count need not be an integer; one
expected count for each contingency.
 Residual
• Residual in (i,j) contingency = observed
count in (i,j) contingency - expected count
in (i,j) contingency.
• That is, R(i,j)= O(i,j)-E(i,j)
• One residual for each contingency.
Pearson Chi-squared Component
• Chi-squared component for (i, j)
contingency =C(i,j)= (Residual in (i, j)
contingency)2/expected count in (i, j)
contingency.
• C(i,j)=(R(i,j))2 / E(i,j)
 Assessing Pearson Component
• Rough guides on whether the (i, j)
contingency has an excessively large chi-
squared component C(i,j):
– the observed significance level of 3.84 is about
0.05.
– Of 6.63 is about 0.01.
– Of 10.83 is 0.001.
 Pearson Chi-Squared Test
• Sum C(i,j) over all contingencies.
• Pearson chi-squared test has (R-1)(C-1)
degrees of freedom.
• Under null hypothesis
– Expected value of chi-square equals its degrees
of freedom.
– Variance is twice its degrees of freedom
 Special Case of 2 x 2
Contingency Table
Status of Column Column Total
Row Var On Off
On A B A+B

Off C D C+D

Total A+C B+D N

 Chi-squared test for a 2x2 table
• 1 degree of freedom [(R-1)(C-1)=1]
• Value of chi-squared test is given by
• N(AD-BC)2 /[(A+B)(C+D)(A+C)(B+D)]
• There is a correction for continuity
 Computer Output for Chi-
Squared Tests
• Output gives value of test.
• Asymptotic significance level (p-value)
• Four types of test
– Pearson chi-squared
– Pearson chi-squared with continuity correction
– Likelihood ratio test (theoretically strong test)
– Fisher’s exact test (most accepted, if given.
 Example Problem Set
• The independent variable is whether or not the
subject reported using marijuana at time 3 in a
study (time 3 is roughly in later high school).
The dependent variable is whether or not the
subject reported using marijuana at time 4 in a
study (time 4 is roughly in middle college or
beginning independent living). The
contingency table is on the next slide.
 Marijuana Use at Time 4 by
Marijuana Use at Time 3
Use at No use at Used at Total
time 4 time 3 time 3
No use at 120 9 129
time 4
Used at 95 142 237
time 4
Total 215 151 366
 Example Question 1
• Which of the following conclusions is
correct about the test of the null hypothesis
that the distribution of whether or not a
subject uses marijuana at time 3 is
independent of whether the subject uses
marijuana at time 4?

• Usual options.
 Solution to question 1
• Find the significance level in the chi-square
test output. Pearson chi-square (without and
with continuity correction), likelihood ratio,
and Fisher’s exact had significance levels of
0.000.
• Option A (reject at the 0.001 level of
significance) is the correct choice.
 Example Question 2
• How many degrees of freedom does the
contingency table describing this output
have?
• Solution: (R-1)(C-1)=(2-1)(2-1)=1.
 Example Question 3
• Specify how the expected count of 97.8 for
subject’s who did use marijuana at time 3 and
time 4 was calculated?
• Solution:
• Total number using at time 3 was 151.
• Total number using at time 4 was 237.
• Total N was 366.
• Expected Count=151*237/366.
 Example Question 4
• Compute the contribution to Pearson’s chi-
square statistic from the cell used marijuana
at time 3 and used marijuana at time 4.
• Solution:
• Observed count was 142
• Expected count was 97.8
• Component=(142-97.8)2/97.8=19.97
 Example Question 5
• Describe the pattern of association between
these two variables.
• Solution. There was a strong dependence
between the two variables. About 44
percent of nonusers at time 3 used at time 4,
compared to 94 percent of users at time 3.
That is, marijuana usage increases very
consistently over time.