contingency table A method of presenting the frequencies of the outcomes from an experiment in which the observations in the sample are categorized according to two criteria. Each cell of the table gives the number of occurrences for a particular combination of categories. A contingency table in which individuals are categorized by gender and hair colour is shown below. A final column giving the row sums and a final row giving the column sums may be added. Then the sum of the final column and the sum of the final row both equal the number in the sample.
If the sample is categorized according to three or more criteria, the information can be presented similarly in a number of such tables. |