1. SWBAT: Describe relationships between two categorical variables and organize statistical problems.
DO NOW: Oatmeal and cholesterol Does eating oatmeal reduce cholesterol? An advertisement included the following graph as evidence that the answer is “Yes.”
How is this graph misleading?

2. SWBAT: Describe relationships between two categorical variables and organize statistical problems.
Two-way Table – describes two categorical variables, organizing counts according to a row variable and a column variable.
Alternate Example: Super Powers
A sample of 200 children from the United Kingdom ages 9-17 was selected from the CensusAtSchool website ( The gender of each student was recorded along with which super power they would most like to have: invisibility, super strength, telepathy (ability to read minds), ability to fly, or ability to freeze time. Here are the results:
What are the variables described by this two-way table?
How many young adults were surveyed?

3. SWBAT: Describe relationships between two categorical variables and organize statistical problems.
The Marginal Distribution is the distribution of values of that variable among all individuals described by the table. (among totals)
Note: Percent's are often more informative than counts, especially when comparing groups of different sizes.

4. SWBAT: Describe relationships between two categorical variables and organize statistical problems.
Let’s examine the marginal distribution of chance of getting rich:

5. SWBAT: Describe relationships between two categorical variables and organize statistical problems.
A Conditional Distribution of a variable describes the values of that variable among individuals who have a specific value of another variable. (among each separate variable, ie. Men and women in this example)
Let’s examine the conditional distribution of opinion among females:

6. SWBAT: Describe relationships between two categorical variables and organize statistical problems.
Let’s now examine the conditional distribution of opinion among men:

7. SWBAT: Describe relationships between two categorical variables and organize statistical problems.
There are two ways to display and compare our data:
Side-by-side bar graph
Segmented bar graph
What are some conclusions we can make about our data?

8. SWBAT: Describe relationships between two categorical variables and organize statistical problems.
Do Now:
What is the difference between Marginal and Conditional distributions?

9. SWBAT: Describe relationships between two categorical variables and organize statistical problems.
EXAMPLE 1: Attitudes toward recycled products Recycling is supposed to save resources. Some people think recycled products are lower in quality than other products, a fact that makes recycling less practical. People who actually use a recycled product may have different opinions from those who don’t use it. Here are data on attitudes toward coffee filters made of recycled paper among people who do and don’t buy these filters:
(a) How many people does this table describe? 
How many of these were buyers of coffee filters made of recycled paper?
(b) Give the marginal distribution of opinion about the quality of recycled filters.
What percent of consumers think the quality of the recycled product is the same or higher than the quality of other filters?
(c) Find the conditional distributions of opinion for buyers and nonbuyers. What do you conclude?

10. SWBAT: Describe relationships between two categorical variables and organize statistical problems.
EXAMPLE 2: Smoking by students and parents Here are data from a survey conducted at eight high schools on smoking among students and their parents
(a) How many students are described in the two-way table? 
What percent of these students smoke?
(b) Give the marginal distribution of parents’ smoking behavior, both in counts and in percents.
(c) Calculate three conditional distributions of students’ smoking behavior: one for each of the three parental smoking categories. Describe the relationship between the smoking behaviors of students and their parents in a few sentences.