3.3 Two-way tables
Two-way tables are an efficient method of organising information regarding two variables about the same item or individual. We could organise our village data with the columns representing age category and the rows showing walking distance to the play park.
Here is an example for a large sample of the village data.
Age category
Time (t) in minutes |
0 - 16 | 17 - 20 | 21 - 40 | 41 - 60 | 61+ | |
| 0 < t ≤ 5 | 7 | 3 | 19 | 12 | 0 | 41 |
| 5 < t ≤ 10 | 4 | 10 | 22 | 25 | 2 | 63 |
| 10 < t ≤ 20 | 5 | 0 | 15 | 19 | 14 | 53 |
| 20 < t ≤ 30 | 12 | 11 | 34 | 21 | 18 | 96 |
| 30 < t ≤ 60 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 17 | 1 | 27 |
| TOTAL | 30 | 26 | 95 | 94 | 35 | 280 |
From this table the number of people in each age category can be read from the totals in the bottom row and the number of people in each walking time category are given in the final column. However, more detailed information can be gained from the numbers in the main part of the table where these two variables are linked. For instance, you should be able to see there are 11 children in the 17-20 age category that live between 20 and 30 minutes’ walk away from the proposed play park site.