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Categorical data analysis of 2 × 2 contingency tables is extremely common, not least because they provide risk difference, risk ratio, odds ratio, and log odds statistics in medical research. A χ 2 test analysis is most often used, although some researchers use likelihood ratio test (LRT) analysis. Does it matter which test is used? A review of the literature, examination of the theoretical foundations, and analyses of simulations and empirical data are used by this paper to argue that only the LRT should be used when we are interested in testing whether the binomial proportions are equal. This so-called test of independence is by far the most popular, meaning the χ 2 test is widely misused. By contrast, the χ 2 test should be reserved for where the data appear to match too closely a particular hypothesis (e.g., the null hypothesis), where the variance is of interest, and is less than expected. Low variance can be of interest in various scenarios, particularly in investigations of data integrity. Finally, it is argued that the evidential approach provides a consistent and coherent method that avoids the difficulties posed by significance testing. The approach facilitates the calculation of appropriate log likelihood ratios to suit our research aims, whether this is to test the proportions or to test the variance. The conclusions from this paper apply to larger contingency tables, including multi-way tables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, traditional population censuses based on total enumeration of the population are being accompanied by sample surveys. Sampling within censuses allows to reduce costs and workload of authorities involved in censuses operations, along with the statistical burden for the people involved in the enumeration. In this paper, we deal with estimation of multi-way contingency tables involving variables measured both via census and sampling. In this framework, two main issues need to be addressed: first of all, sample size for estimating some of the entries of the contingency tables may be too small, delivering estimates prone to huge sampling variability. On the other hand, since estimates of the joint distribution need to be coherent with the marginal distribution of the variable collected via a census, estimation methods need to be coherent with the constraint imposed by marginal distribution of variables measured via census. The problem is tackled via a model-based approach that allows to comply with all coherence constraints following a fairly simple procedure. The merit of the proposed methodology is illustrated by means of a simulation study.

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