contingency table
contingency table In statistical analysis, a frequency distribution of sample data classified by two or more factors, each with two or more classes. A simple example is a medical clinical trial of two treatments in which the number of patients assigned to each treatment is classified according to whether improvement was observed or not. If there is no significant difference between the proportions of patients improving, there is said to be no interaction between the two classifications of the table. The statistical analysis of contingency tables depends on certain assumptions (random assignment to classes, absence of other relevant factors) that make the interpretation controversial, and care must be taken in applying the tests correctly. See also chi-squared distribution.
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contingency table
