Question

A survey was conducted to study the relationship between whether the family is buying or renting their home and the marital status of the parents. Data were collected from a random sample of 280 families from a certain metropolitan area.

A meaningful graphical display of these data would be:

A. side-by-side box plots
B. a pie chart
C. a stemplot
D. a scatterplot
E. a contingency table

Answer 1

E. a contingency table

Explanation:

First we need to identify the number of variables in the survey. The choice of graphical display depends on the number of variables and their types.

The survey was conducted to study the relationship between:

1) Whether the family is buying or renting their homes

This is a categorical variable with 2 possible options

2) Marital Status of the Parents

This is also a categorical variable with 4 possible options: Married, single, divorced, and widowed

This means, we have to display 2 categorical variables side by side, showing their relationship. To display such data we always use a contingency table.

A contingency table or a 2-way table is a type of Frequency Distribution that is used to summarize the relationship between two or more Categorical Variables. Its similar to matrix form i.e. in form of rows and columns of a table. The minimum size is 2 rows and 2 columns.

An example of the contingency table that can be drawn for a data collected in a similar survey is shown in the image below.