Cross Tabulation Application

Application: Cross Tabulation

Variable relationships are very important in quantitative research. They tell researchers what effect different variables have upon one another. One of the easiest ways to display relationships between variables is through a cross-tabulation (cross-tab). A cross-tab is simply a chart that shows frequency or distribution of one or more variables for every category of another variable. Stated another way, a cross-tab is a joint frequency distribution of observations on two or more sets of variables. These statistical observations can be presented by numeric frequency, percentages, or both, depending on which is most useful given the specific data context.

For this Application Assignment, perform a cross-tabulation on the data provided in the handout “Week 10 Dataset” such that property crime is displayed as a rate per student population. Though Excel is not the only software that can be used to perform a cross-tabulation, it is used here because it is a widely available program. The handout entitled, “Cross-Tabulation in Excel” contains instructions on how to complete the task in Excel using two different methods.

The assignment (2–3 pages):

• Using Excel, perform a cross tabulation on the data provided in the Week 10 dataset.
• Explain what you can conclude from the output of the cross tabulation.
• Include your outputs in your Application Assignment document. (Copy and paste them from Excel into your Word doc.)