11.1.2 - Two-Way Contingency Table
Recall from Lesson 2.1.2 that a two-way contingency table is a display of counts for two categorical variables in which the rows represented one variable and the columns represent a second variable. The starting point for analyzing the relationship between two categorical variables is to create a two-way contingency table. When one variable is obviously the explanatory variable, the convention is to use the explanatory variable to define the rows and the response variable to define the columns; this is not a hard and fast rule though.
MinitabExpress – Constructing a Two-Way Contingency Table
- Open the data set:
- On a PC: Select STATISTICS > Cross Tabulation and Chi-square
On a Mac: Select Statistics > Tables > Cross Tabulation and Chi-Square - Select Raw data (categorical variable) from the drop down menu
- Double click the variable Smoke Cigarettes in the box on the left to insert the variable into the Rows box
- Double click the variable Biological Sex in the box on the left to insert the variable into the Columns box
- Click OK
This should result in the two-way table below:
Tabulated Statistics: Smoke Cigarettes, Biological Sex
Female | Male | All | |
---|---|---|---|
No | 120 | 89 | 209 |
Yes | 7 | 10 | 17 |
All | 127 | 99 | 226 |
Cell Contents: Count |
Video Walkthrough
Select your operating system below to see a step-by-step guide for this example.