Methods for Analysing Contingency Tables
Contingency tables are an important data format in many areas of quantitative research in the social sciences. Statistics packages offer a number of ways of measuring the strength of the relationship between the two axes of the table and of assessing its statistical significance. These two short papers refer respectively to where the axes are both nominal (categorical) variables and where they are both ordinal variables. In each case, the rationale for the various indices is outlined and their advantages and disadvantages summarised. Each paper ends with the author's personal view of the best approach to adopt.
