06-05-10

TESTS APPROPRIATE FOR

NOMINAL DATA

Chi-Square goodness of fit test

At times research is undertaken to determine whether
some observed pattern of frequencies conforms to an “
expected” pattern. If the data are nominally scaled, the
goodness-of-fit technique is used in which the
researcher tests whether a significant different exists
between the observed number of responses in each
category and the expected number for each category

Example:- A soft drink bottler who has recently developed a

new drink that quenches one’s thirst after participating in
strenuous exercise. This bottler is considering bottling this
product in four different sizes: 7 ounces, 12 ounces 16 ounces
and 32 ounces bottle. From the past sales records of their
other soft drinks 10 % purchased the 7-ounce bottle 35 %
purchased the 12-ounce 25 % purchased the 16-ounce bottle,
and 30 % purchased the 32-ounce bottle The bottler is
interested if this consumption pattern exists for the new soft
drink.
The bottler decides to conduct a test marker to determine the
purchasing pattern of the various bottle sizes for the new
drink.

After a two week market test, the data gathered indicated that
15,980 bottles of the ner drink sold and the distribution of
sales by size was as fallows
7-OZ 12-Oz 16-OZ 32-OZ
1698 5683 3945 4654
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1) Construction of hypotheses
Ho : There has been no change in the consumption pattern for the various
bottle sizes.
H1: There has been a change in the consumption pattern for the various
bottle sizes.
)Test Statistic O=Observed Frequency
(O − E) 2
χ2 = ∑ = 12.43 E=Expected Frequency or
E
Frequency considering Ho true

Category 7-OZ 12-Oz 16-OZ 32-OZ O E (O-E)2/E

1698 1598 6.26
O 1698 5683 3945 4654
5683 5593 1.45
E 1598 5593 3995 4794 3945 3995 0.63
4654 4794 4.09
15980 15980 12.43
Decision Rule:- Reject Ho if χ2cal ≥ χ2α[K-1]

Result:-As χ2cal > χ2.05(3)=7.81 So reject Ho and conclude that the sales
pattern for the new soft drink is different than the sales pattern of other soft
drink.
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Example:-In a random sample of 120 students who are administered an

attitude statement
“ SEMESTER SYSTEM IS A USEFUL EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM IN
UAF”
with four response categories : strongly agree, agree, disagree and
strongly disagree.
Test the hypothesis that each student has an equal chance of
responding to any of the four categories i.e equal number of students
response in four categories

Response Observed
categories Frequency
Strongly Agree 45
Agree 35
Disagree 25
Strongly disagree 15

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1) Construction of hypotheses
Ho : Equal number of students in each response category.
H1: Number of students are different in each response category.
)Test Statistic O=Observed Frequency
(O − E ) 2
χ2 = ∑ = 16.66
E=Expected Frequency or
E
Frequency considering Ho true
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Response O E (O-E) /E
categories
Strongly Agree 45 30 7.50
Agree 35 30 0.83
Disagree 25 30 0.83
Strongly disagree 15 30 7.50
120 120 16.66

Decision Rule:- Reject Ho if χ2cal ≥ χ2α[K-1]

Result:-As χ2cal > χ2.05(3)=7.81 So reject Ho and conclude there is trend in
responses.
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Chi-Square test of independence

Chi-Square test can also be used to test

whether two categorical variables are
associated are not in a contingency
table, in such situation test is called test
of independence of attributes

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EXAMPLE:- Mr. Fahid is the training manager of a light

engineering firm which employs a considerable number of
skilled machine operators. The firm is constantly making efforts
to improve the quality of its product and so recently Mr. Fahid
has introduced a new refresher training course for workers who
have been on the same machine for a long time. The first group
has now completed the course and returned to normal work and
Mr. Fahid would like to assess the effect if any which the
training has had upon the standard of its work so that he can
decide whether to make such courses a regular event

Category Improved not improved Sub Total

Under 35 17 4 21

35-50 17 7 24

Over 50 6 9 15

Sub Total 40 20 60
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Category Improved not improved Sub

Total O E (O-E)2/E
Under 35 17 4 21 17 14 0.643
(21x40)/60=(14) (21x20)/60=(7)
35-50 17 7 24
17 16 0.063
(24x40)/60=(16) (24x20)/60=(8) 6 10 1.600
Over 50 6 9 15 4 7 1.286
(15x40)/60=(10) (15x20)/60=(05) 7 8 0.125
Sub Total 40 20 60
9 5 3.200
164 164 6.92
A1) Construction of hypotheses
Ho : Same rate of improvement in all three age groups OR
No association (independence) between age group and improvement
H1: Rate of improvement is not same in all age groups OR
The two attributes (age group and improvement) are not independent

)Test Statistic
O=Observed Frequency
(O − E ) 2
χ2 =∑ = 6.92
E E=Expected Frequency or
2 2
Decision Rule:- Reject Ho if χ cal ≥ χ α[(r-1)x(c-1)] Frequency considering Ho true

Result:-As χ2cal > χ2.05(2)=5.99 So reject Ho and conclude that the two
attributes are not independent i.e improvement rate for different age group is
different
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EXAMPLE:-A researcher want to investigate whether

level of adoption of farmers is independent of their
level of education or not. He randomly select 200
farmers and categories them according to different
level of education ( High, Medium, Low) and different
levels of adoption ( High, Low)

Category Adoption
Education High Low Sub Total
High 30 20 50

Medium 30 30 60

Low 20 70 90

Sub Total 80 120 200

Construction of hypotheses
Ho : Two attributes are independent i.e no association between
educational levels and adoption levels.
H1: Two attributes are not independent

Adoption Total

High Low
Education High Count 30 20 50

Expected Count 20.0 30.0 50.0

Medium Count 30 30 60

Expected Count 24.0 36.0 60.0

Low Count 20 70 90

Expected Count 36.0 54.0 90.0

Total Count 80 120 200

Expected Count 80.0 120.0 200.0

Asymp. Sig. (2-
Value df sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 22.685 2 .000

Reject Ho and conclude that levels of education and levels of adoption

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are associated

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Example:- The following data represent the distribution of

respondent to different income group and whether they have PDA or not

What factors affect the products that people buy? The

most obvious is probably how much money people have
to spend. In this example, we'll examine the relationship
between income level and PDA (personal digital assistant)
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ownership.

Information from crosstables

The fact that there are more
than twice as many PDA
owners in the $25,000 -
$49,000 income category than
in the under $25,000 category
may not mean much (or
anything) since there are also
more than twice as many
people in that income
category.

A clearer picture now starts

to emerge. The percentage
of people who own PDAS
rises as the income
category rises.
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The purpose of a crosstabulation is to show the

relationship (or lack thereof) between two variables.
Although there appears to be some relationship between
the two variables, is there any reason to believe that the
differences in PDA ownership between different income
categories is anything more than random variation?
A number of tests are available to determine if the
relationship between two crosstabulated variables is
significant. One of the more common tests is chi-square.
One of the advantages of chi-square is that it is
appropriate for almost any kind of data.
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OUT PUT FROM SPSS

•Pearson chi-square tests the hypothesis that the row and

column variables are independent. The actual value of the
statistic isn't very informative.
•The significance value (Asymp. Sig.) has the information we're
looking for. The lower the significance value, the less likely it is
that the two variables are independent (unrelated).
•In this case, the significance value is so low that it is displayed14as .000,
which means that it would appear that the two variables are, indeed, related.