Statistics & the Chi Square function

rujedi

New Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
4
Hi everyone,

I'm teaching statistics and started incorporating Excel alongside R. When we got to running a Chi-Square test, I noticed something very odd that I cannot figure out. Can someone tell me why I get different results with the same formula function.
Note, I'm using Excel 365 on Windows 10.


[TABLE="class: grid, width: 500"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]A[/TD]
[TD]B[/TD]
[TD]C[/TD]
[TD]D[/TD]
[TD]E[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Observed[/TD]
[TD]past[/TD]
[TD]present[/TD]
[TD]future[/TD]
[TD]row.total[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]up[/TD]
[TD]12[/TD]
[TD]45[/TD]
[TD]78[/TD]
[TD]135[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]down[/TD]
[TD]23[/TD]
[TD]56[/TD]
[TD]89[/TD]
[TD]168[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]col.total[/TD]
[TD]35[/TD]
[TD]101[/TD]
[TD]167[/TD]
[TD]303[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

[TABLE="class: grid, width: 500"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]A[/TD]
[TD]B[/TD]
[TD]C[/TD]
[TD]D[/TD]
[TD]E[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]Expected[/TD]
[TD]past[/TD]
[TD]present[/TD]
[TD]future[/TD]
[TD]row.total[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]up[/TD]
[TD]15.59[/TD]
[TD]45.00[/TD]
[TD]74.41[/TD]
[TD]135[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]down[/TD]
[TD]19.41[/TD]
[TD]56.00[/TD]
[TD]92.59[/TD]
[TD]168[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]col.total[/TD]
[TD]35[/TD]
[TD]101[/TD]
[TD]167[/TD]
[TD]303[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]


When I use =CHISQ.TEST(B2:D3,B8:D9) I get a p-value of 0.4051 which is correct.
BUT.....
If I rearrange the tables to look like below, I get a different p-value.
[TABLE="class: grid, width: 500"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]H[/TD]
[TD]I[/TD]
[TD]J[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]observed[/TD]
[TD]expected[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]up past[/TD]
[TD]12[/TD]
[TD]15.59[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]up present[/TD]
[TD]45[/TD]
[TD]45.00[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]up future[/TD]
[TD]78[/TD]
[TD]74.41[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD]down past[/TD]
[TD]23[/TD]
[TD]19.41[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]down present[/TD]
[TD]56[/TD]
[TD]56.00[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]down future[/TD]
[TD]89[/TD]
[TD]92.59[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]total[/TD]
[TD]303[/TD]
[TD]303[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

When I use =CHISQ.TEST(I2:I8,J2:J8) I get a p-value of 0.8741 which is not correct.

What's going on that I am missing? Does it have something to do with how the degrees of freedom are being counted?
I didn't see an function option to specify a Goodness of Fit or Test for Independence, which would change how df is counted.

Is there a function to produce the Chi-Square statistic?
At first I thought it was =CHISQ.TEST(), because =CHISQ.DIST.RT also gives me the p-value if I provide it the Chi-Square statistic and the degrees of freedom.
When I start to type =CHI all of the options that pop-up have something to do with the probability and not providing the statistic.
I don't see Chi-Square listed in the Data Analysis Tookpak.

Thanks for the assist!
Shawn
 

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You are right it has to do with the df.
df=(rows-1)(columns-1)

In your first table you have 2 rows and 3 columns = (2-1)(3-1)=2 df
Your second table has 6 rows and 2 columns = (6-1)(2-1)=5 df

If you calculate chi-square in both cases you will get 1.803
I don't know of a function in Excel that will only calculate chi-square.

Excel Workbook
ABCDEF
1Observedpastpresentfuturerow.total
2up124578135
3down235689168
4col.total35101167303
5
6
Table 1
Excel Workbook
ABCDEF
1observedexpectedchi-square
2up past1215.590.82669
3up present45450.00000
4up future7874.410.17320
5down past2319.410.66399
6down present56560.00000
7down future8992.590.13920
8total3033031.80308= chi-square
9
10
11chi-square1.803
12df5
13p value0.8756765
Table 2
 
Upvote 0
I noticed that Excel Jeanie didn't post everthing above.

Excel Workbook
ABCDEF
1Observedpastpresentfuturerow.total
2up124578135
3down235689168
4col.total35101167303
5
6
7Expectedpastpresentfuturerow.total
8up15.594574.41135
9down19.415692.59168
10col.total35101167303
11
12
13chi-square1.803082
14df=2
15p value0.405944
16
Table 1



Excel Workbook
ABCDEF
1observedexpectedchi-square
2up past1215.590.82669
3up present45450.00000
4up future7874.410.17320
5down past2319.410.66399
6down present56560.00000
7down future8992.590.13920
8total3033031.80308= chi-square
9
10
11chi-square1.803
12df5
13p value0.8756765
Table 2
 
Upvote 0
Thank you AhoyNC!
I had a feeling it was the degrees of freedom tripping up the function. Too bad I cannot specify the degrees of freedom in that function or specify if it is a Goodness of Fit or Test of Independence Chi-Square since df is different for each.

This also means that I will have to be very specific if allow my students to reshape the table to manually calculate Chi-Square (less space & easier to drag formulas) since it will change the df. They'll have to use the =CHI.DIST.RT(x, df) function and input the df since the =CHISQ.TEST(obs, exp) function doesn't have the ability to set the df.

Excel Jeanie HTML 4--Very neat trick. That will surely save me work trying to replicate my spreadsheet in a forum post.

I find it interesting, that Excel offers two ways to get the p-value:
=CHI.DIST.RT(x, df) when we already have the Chi-Square and df, and
=CHISQ.TEST(observed, expected) when we don't yet have the Chi-Square or df.

Curious though--one of my students started using =CHISQ.INV.RT(probability, df) to generate the Chi-Square statistic. Sometimes this works and seems exact, while other times it is in the ball park but not the same value.

Using the example of Excel tables, =CHISQ.INV.RT(B13, B14) results in a Chi-Square of 1.807. Pretty spot on this time.
 
Upvote 0
Your students could add a 3rd table to calculate the (obs-exp)^2/exp as in cell B14 below and the just copy the formula across and down. Then just use the SUM function to get the Chi-square.
Excel Workbook
ABCDE
1Observedpastpresentfuturerow.total
2up124578135
3down235689168
4col.total35101167303
5
6
7Expectedpastpresentfuturerow.total
8up15.594574.41135
9down19.415692.59168
10col.total35101167303
11
12
13(Obs-Exp)^2/Exppastpresentfuture
140.82670.00000.1732
150.66400.00000.1392
16
17Chi-square1.80308
Sheet
 
Upvote 0
I wholly agree AhoyNC. I actually make them do the Chi-Square step by step in Excel, to eventually sum the Chi-Square, look up the critical value on stats tables and determine the statistical significance. This was usually to help make sure they knew how to do it 'by hand' and double-check the results they get from computing the value in R (or SPSS or Stata depending which class I'm teaching).

Only recently did we start exploring Excel's ability calculate p-values and try to calculate the Chi-Square statistic, which is what led to my initial confusion.

Thanks again for the assist!
 
Upvote 0

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