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Testing to differentiate between two Population Proportion and Hypothesized Value using Chi
Square:

There are instances when in a given population is more than one, where we consider the situation
where there are two or more independent comparison groups and the goal of the analysis is to
compare the distribution of responses to the discrete outcome variable among several
independent comparison groups.

The test is call the chi squared test of independence and the null hypothesis is that there is no
outcome across comparison groups. This is often stated as follows: The outcome variable and the
grouping variable are independent. If the row variable has only two category (success failure),
and the columns are population labels rather than levels of a second variable, the chi-square test
of independence is called a test for equality of proportions.

e.g.

Dormitory residency is sometimes advertised as being beneficial to students because it helps

foster a connectedness to the university and maybe help the students develop an academic
lifestyle. In one study involving 408 entering students in 1995, students were classified according
to (i) whether they live in a campus dormitory during their first yr, and (ii) whether they had
graduated within 6 years entering college. The data is presented in a 2x2 cross-classification table
below.

DORM NOT DORM

Grad more than or 204 20
equal 6 yrs
Grad less than 6 yrs 160 24

We are interested in comparing 6-year graduation rate of dormitory residents versus non
dormitory residents. In terms of population parameters, we write the null and alternative
hypothesis as

H0 : P1 = P2 versus H1 : P1 = P2

Where P1 and P2 are the population graduation rates for dorm and non-dorm residents,
respectively.

First compute the graduation rate marginal distribution:

 DORM NOT DORM TOTAL
Grad more than or 224 (This is
equal 6 yrs 54.9% of 408)
Grad less than 6 yrs 184 (This is
45.1% of 408)
TOTAL 364 44 408

Extrapolating the marginal distribution to each individual column, we get the following expected
frequencies:

(.549)(364) = 199.84 (.549)(44) = 24.16

(.451)(364) = 164.16 (.451)(44) = 19.84

The chi-square test compares these expected frequencies to the observed frequencies. The null
hypothesis is rejected if observed and expected frequencies are too far apart.

Here is the way a statistical report would formally present the test, in number stages.

1. Hypothesis H0 : p1 = p2 versus H1 : p1 = p2 , where p1 = 6-yr grad rate of dorm, p2 = 6-yr grad

rate of non-dorm.

2. Test statistic:
3. P-value: the area greater than 1.78 under the chi-square with 1 degree of freedom is .18.

4. Conclusion: Since P-Value > .05, we accept H0 : p1 = p2 . The sample does not provide enough
evidence to declare significant difference between graduation rates of dormitory and non-
dormitory students.