Chi-Square test for independence

This test will be used to explore the relationship between two categorical variables. Each of the
variables have two or more categories. The Pearson-chi square ( statistics is given by (Field
2009):
2

=
2

( observed ij modelij )

modelij =E ij =

modelij
row total i column total j
n

Where,
n

= the total number of observations

degree of freedom=( r1 ) ( c1 )

Where,
r

= no. of rows

= no. of columns

Example: Relationship between gender and financial issues (tested using an alpha of 0.05).
1. Calculating Expected frequencies (see Table 1):
For Row1, Column1 Eij =1*29/40 =0.725 (repeat for other rows and columns

NOTE: Expected cell count Adequate expected cell counts. Some require 5 or more,
and others require 10 or more. A common rule is 5 or more in all cells of a 2-by-2 table,
and 5 or more in 80% of cells in larger tables, but no cells with zero expected count. When
this assumption is not met, Yates's Correction is applied.

If the estimated data in any given cell is below 5, then there is not enough data to
perform a Chi-square test. In a case like this, you should research some other techniques
for smaller data sets: for example, there is a correction for the Chi-square test to use with
small data sets, called the Yates correction. There are also tests written specifically for
smaller data sets, like the Fisher Exact Test.
GENDER * Financial Issues Cross tabulation
Financial Issues
1.00

2.00

3.00

Total
4.00

5.00

GENDER

Male

Female

Count

.0000

.0000

3.0000

15.0000

11.0000

29.0000

Expected Count

.7250

.7250

3.6250

13.7750

10.1500

29.0000

1.0000

1.0000

2.0000

4.0000

3.0000

11.0000

.2750

.2750

1.3750

5.2250

3.8500

11.0000

Count

1.0000

1.0000

5.0000

19.0000

14.0000

40.0000

Expected Count

1.0000

1.0000

5.0000

19.0000

14.0000

40.0000

Count
Expected Count

Total

Table 1

2. Calculate Pearson chi-square = (0-0.725)2/0.725 + (0-0.725)2/0.725 + (3-3.625)2/3.625 +

(15-13.775)2/13.775 + (11-10.15)2/10.15 + (1-0.275)2/0.275+ (1-0.275)2/0.275+ (21.375)2/1.375+ (4-5.225)2/5.225+ (3-3.85)2/3.85 = 6.319
3. Calculate the degree of freedom -No. of rows = 2, No of columns = 5. Therefore, the degree
of freedom = (2-1)(5-1) = 4
Chi-Square Tests
Asymp. Sig. (2Value

df

sided)

6.3196a

4.0000

.1765

Likelihood Ratio

6.2183

4.0000

.1834

Linear-by-Linear Association

4.0252

1.0000

.0448

Pearson Chi-Square

N of Valid Cases

40.0000

a. 7 cells (70.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum

expected count is .28.

Interpretating the data.

1. Observed data Expected data (NOTE: If there is NO relationship between the variables,
the observed and expected frequencies will be the same.)The Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) for the
Pearson Chi-Square statistic is greater than 0.05 (confidence level in the data). There is no
relationship based on the confidence level of the data.
Or Use
The usual "cut points" for significance levels are as follows:
Less than .01 - Highly significant
Between .01 and .05 - Moderately significant
Between .05 and .10 - Somewhat significant
Above .10 - Not significant
This is true for any statistic you use (not just Chi-square).

Field, Andy P. 2009. Discovering statistics using SPSS SAGE Publications.