CHI SQUARE

USES OF CHI SQUARE

Chi Square is the most common and

simple non-parametric test of
significance investigating
associations between categories
of nominal variables where
observations can be classified into
discrete categories and treated as
frequencies.
 CHI SQUARE
For Example:
Is there a significant preference for one of three
brands of toothpaste among a sample of
children;
Is there a significant association between
membership or not of a trade union among full-
time and part-time employees;
Are there gender preferences for various types of
investment category

Interval data can be degraded to nominal

to enable use of chi square, e.g. age into
age groups, income into income groups.
 USE OF CHI SQUARE
• Chi Square tests hypotheses about the independence
(or association) of frequency counts in various
categories. The hypotheses are:
• H0 where the variables are statistically independent
or no statistical association, and
• H1 where the variables are statistically dependent or
associated.
• For example H0 would state that there is no significant
association between your gender and which
toothpaste you prefer; or that union membership is
independent of (not associated with) type of
employment, i.e. that the cross-categories from each
variable are independent of each other.
TWO FORMS OF CHI SQUARE
• There are two forms
1. Goodness-of-Fit Chi Square
2. Cross-tabulations (contingency tables)

• But to whichever of these uses chi square is put, the

general principle remains the same.
• We compare the observed proportions in a sample
with the expected proportions and apply the chi-square
test to determine whether the difference between
observed and expected proportions is likely to be a
function of sampling error (non-significant - retaining
the null hypothesis H0 ) or unlikely to be a function of
sampling error (significant association - reject the null
hypothesis and support alternate hypothesis - H1 ).
 GOODNESS OF FIT
A goodness-of-fit test - how well does an observed
distribution fit a hypothesized or theoretical
distribution
– are some brands of frozen peas chosen by
consumers more than others;
– is absence through sickness regularly
distributed through the working week or is
‘sick leave’ more frequent on some days
than other days;
– are choices on a survey item with a three-
point response scale of ‘yes’, ‘no opinion’,
‘no’, equally divided or is there a significant
preference for one choice to the item?
 EXAMPLE OF GOODNESS OF FIT
• Consider the question: ‘Is more staff sick
leave recorded on some days of the
week rather than on other days?’
• Observed data on number of staff off sick
per day for three months is recorded:

Mon Tue Wed Thur Fri Total

64 29 15 20 72 200

• Expected data for each day is 200/5 = 40 – i.e.

equality. Chi square will determine whether the
observed pattern differs significantly from the
daily expected 40.
 CHI SQUARE FORMULA

The formula for chi square is the summation

for each cell:

Chi 2
 
=  (O - E)
E

Where:
O = observed frequency - the data observed in our
research/survey
E = expected frequency, and
 = the summation over all the cells in the table
 FORMAT OF CELL
• Each cell follows the pattern:

Observed Expected

O–E (O - E)2
 EXAMPLE OF GOODNESS OF
FIT
observed 200 sick leave absences - the expected frequency in each cell
must be 200/5 = 40

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

64 40 29 40 15 40 20 40 72 40

24 576 11 121 25 625 20 400 32 1024

Chi square =
 (O - E)2 =
E
576 + 121 + 625 + 400 + 1024
40 40 40 40 40
Chi square = 68.65 p < .01 i.e. a significant
association between absence and particular days of week
 INTERPRETATION OF
GOODNESS OF FIT EXAMPLE
• We can reject the null hypothesis with
confidence, and accept the alternate hypothesis
that sick leave is not randomly distributed
through the week.
• To specify how it is distributed, you must return
to inspect the original data where you can
readily appreciate that absences are much
higher on Mondays and Fridays and much lower
on other days of the week. I leave the
interpretation and speculation of why to you!
 INTERPRETATION OF
GOODNESS OF FIT EXAMPLE

• A chi square of zero indicates that the

observed and expected frequencies match
exactly.
• Chi square can never be negative since
differences between the observed and
expected are always squared.
SPSS EXAMPLE OF GOODNESS
OF FIT
Is there any specific preference for one of three
drinks? Null hypothesis claims any variation is
simply random

1. Click on Analyze and select Nonparametric

Tests from the drop-down menu.
2. Choose Chi-square ... which opens the Chi-
Square Test dialogue box.
3. Select the variable (in this example ‘drink’) then
click on the arrow button which transfers this
variable to the Test Variable List: box.
4. Select OK. The results of the analysis are
displayed in next slides.
SPSS Example
 SPSS Output
Choice of drink

Observed N Expected N Residual

Coke 17 10.0 7.0 Equality
Pepsi 11 10.0 1.0 of choice
Sprite 7 10.0 -3.0
Solo 5 10.0 -5.0
Total 40 Residuals are
difference
between
observed and
expected
Actual choices
 SPSS Output

Choice of
drink Significant as p<.05
Chi-
8.400
Square(a)
df 3
Asymp. Sig. .038
a 0 cells (.0%) have expected frequencies less than 5. The minimum expected cell frequency is 10.0.
 How to Interpret Output
• The observed choice frequencies are presented in the
second column.
• The expected frequencies of cases are displayed in the
third column. The expected frequency for each of the
four drinks with 40 personal choices is 40/4, i.e. 10.
• The residual column displays the differences between
the observed and expected frequencies.
• The second box presents the value of chi square, its
degrees of freedom and its significance. Chi square is
8.4, its degrees of freedom are 3 (i.e. 4 choices - 1) and
its significance level is 0.038. This indicates that there is
a statistically significant deviation from the expected
distribution of equality beyond p<.05. Coke is most
popular while Solo and Sprite are significantly less
preferred.
• Note the comment below the second sub-table. Chi
square requires expected cell frequencies of at least 5.
 CROSS-TABULATION
This is a two-dimensional table showing
frequencies in each combination of
categories for two nominal variables -
each of which can be divided into two or
more sub-categories,e.g.
– preference for type of music (classical, jazz,
country and western, rock) against age
group (below 21; 21 - 45; above 45)
– length of service in year groupings against
job position level
 CONTINGENCY AND CROSS-
TABULATION TABLES

1.The 2 x 2 contingency table has two

variables each divided into two categories only
organized by rows and columns, i.e. 4 cells.
2. Cross-tabulation tables have more than two
rows and two columns, e.g. are investment
types associated with age groups. But with
increasing rows and columns, interpretation of
results becomes more complex and sample
sizes must be larger so that sufficient observed
counts occur in each cell.
 EXAMPLE OF CONTINGENCY
TABLE
Association between preferences for toothpaste brand and
respondent gender. There are 4 cells.

Brand Male Female

Minty 21 46
Pegsave 83 14
 EXAMPLE OF CROSS TABULATION
• Is there an association between number of children in family and
number of computers owned? There are 9 cells.

• SPSS calculates the expected frequency values for each of the cells
in the contingency table. Chi square in this example is 38.05, which
far exceeds the 0.01 level, indicating a significant association
between number of children and number of computers.

Number of Children in Family

No. of Computers One child Two children Three or more

Two 20 16 8
One 40 22 10
None 12 36 42
 SPSS EXAMPLE OF
CONTINGENCY
• In this example, we will examine the Null
Hypothesis that there is no significant
relationship between gender and whether the
person smokes or not.
• The Alternate Hypothesis is that there is a
significant relationship between gender and
whether the person smokes or not.
• The analysis compares the observed
frequencies (actual data) to the expected
frequencies (those that could be expected if there
were no significant relationship between the two
variables, i.e. frequencies possible under Ho
 SPSS EXAMPLE OF
CONTINGENCY
1. Select Analyze to produce the drop-down menu
of the various statistical processes.
2. Choose Descriptive Statistics to obtain a
second drop-down menu
3. Select Crosstabs. This opens the Crosstabs :
dialogue box.
4. Click on ‘gender' and then the arrow button
beside Row[s]: which transfers it into
the Rows box.
5. Select 'smoke or not' and then the arrow button
beside Column[s] which moves it to the
Columns box. It does not matter which variable
goes in row or columns.
SPSS EXAMPLE
 SPSS EXAMPLE
6. Choose Statistics at the bottom of the Crosstabs :
dialogue box. This opens the Crosstabs: Statistics dialogue box.
7. Select Chi square, then phi and Cramer’s V in the
Nominal data box.
 SPSS EXAMPLE
• 8. Next click on Continue
• 9. Select Cells This produces the
Crosstabs: Cell Display dialogue box.
• 10. Choose Expected in the Counts box.
(Observed should already be selected).
• 11. Click on Row, Column and Total in
the Percentages box.
• Select Continue. Finally select OK.
SPSS EXAMPLE
 SPSS EXAMPLE
gender * smoke or not Cross-tabulation

smoke or not
Does not
smoke Smokes Total
gender male Count 10 12 22
Expected Count 11.6 10.5 22.0
% within gender 45.5% 54.5% 100.0%
% within smoke or not 47.6% 63.2% 55.0%
% of Total 25.0% 30.0% 55.0%
female Count 11 7 18
Expected Count 9.5 8.6 18.0
% within gender 61.1% 38.9% 100.0%
% within smoke or not 52.4% 36.8% 45.0%
% of Total 27.5% 17.5% 45.0%
Total Count 21 19 40
Expected Count 21.0 19.0 40.0
% within gender 52.5% 47.5% 100.0%
% within smoke or not 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
% of Total 52.5% 47.5% 100.0%
 SPSS EXAMPLE
• The printout shows the observed and expected
frequency of cases in each cell. The observed
frequency (called Count) is presented first and
the expected frequency (Expected count)
underneath.
• The observed frequencies are always whole
numbers. Expected frequencies are always
expressed to one decimal place. Thus the first
cell of the table (defined as ‘male’ and ‘does not
smoke’) has an observed frequency of 10 but an
expected frequency of 11.6. The rest of the table
is also easily interpretable.
 SPSS EXAMPLE

Asymp. Sig. Exact Sig. Exact Sig.

Value df (2-sided) (2-sided) (1-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square .973(b) 1 .324
Continuity
.447 1 .504
Correction(a)
Likelihood Ratio .978 1 .323
Fisher's Exact Test .360 .252
Linear-by-Linear
Association .949 1 .330
No. of Valid Cases 40
a Computed only for a 2x2 table
b 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 8.55.
 SPSS EXAMPLE
• This table displays the chi-square value, its
degrees of freedom and significance level. Chi
square is on the line labelled ‘Pearson’ with a
value of 0.973. Its degrees of freedom are 1
and its two-tailed probability is 0.324. There is
no significant association between smoking and
gender. Ho is retained.
• Note the warning about the Minimum Expected
Frequency of any cell in the table. If there are
cells with a minimum expected frequency of 5.0
or less then we should be wary of using chi
square and use Fisher’s Exact test result instead
which will be produced by SPSS in such cases.
 SPSS EXAMPLE

• If a significant result is obtained, you must refer

back to the Cross-tabulation table in order to
interpret what the significant pattern is and
means

• Look at the patterns between observed and

expected, for they provide the information of
what associations exist and their direction
 RESTRICTIONS IN THE USE OF THE CHI
SQUARE

• chi square is only appropriate for data that are

classified as frequency of occurrence (counts)
within categories (nominal data)
• it must only be used on frequencies, never on
percentages
• categories must be mutually exclusive - each
response can be classified into only one cell
• larger samples are needed when there are many
categories within each variable.
– A rule-of-thumb is that the expected frequency in all
cells should at least equal or be greater than 5.
– Fusing of categories is not really desirable, since it
involves a reduction in the amount of information
available.
 SUMMARY OF STEPS IN CHI SQUARE

• Null and alternate hypotheses about the

proposed relationship are stated
• We compute frequencies of occurrence of
events that we expect under the null hypothesis
to provide the expected frequencies for each cell
• We note the computed chi square in the SPSS
printout and whether statistical significance is
achieved
• We inspect our original data to determine the
direction of association if a significant result is
obtained