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Interpreting two-way tables

Two-way tables let us sort a group in two ways. For example, we see how men and women voted in the 2012 US presidential election. We can compare the percentages of men and women who voted for each candidate. Two-way tables help us understand how categories relate.

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Video transcript

- The two-way table of column relative frequencies below shows data on gender and voting preferences during the 2012 United States presidential election. They give us all this data. They give us this, as they say, the two-way table of column relative frequencies. So for example this column right over here is Men. The column total is 1.00, or you could say 100 percent. And we can see that 0.42 of the Men or 42 percent of the Men voted for Obama. We can see 52% of the Men or 0.52 of the Men voted for Romney. And we can see that the Other, neither Obama, 6 percent went for neither Obama nor Romney. And for Women, 52 percent went for Obama, 43 percent went for Romney and 5 percent went for Other. And then these, this 52 plus 43 plus 5 will add up to 100 percent of the women. During the 2012 United States presidential election, were male voters more likely to vote for Romney than female voters? So let's see. If we, there are a couple of ways you could think about it. Well, actually, let's go this way. Male voters, if you were a man, 52 percent of them voted for Romney. While for the Women, 43 percent of them voted for Romney. So a man was more likely. If you randomly picked a man who voted, there was a 52 percent chance they voted for Romney, while if you randomly picked a woman, there was a 43 percent, of women who voted, there was a 43 percent chance that she voted for Romney. So yes, male voters were more likely to vote for Romney than female voters. So the answer is Yes. And we're done.