How does a contingency table differ from tables used in factorial designs?

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Prepare for UCF's PSY3204C Statistical Methods in Psychology Quiz 3. Use interactive tools and engaging quizzes to solidify your understanding of statistics in psychology, and enhance your chances of success.

A contingency table is specifically designed to display the frequency distribution of categorical variables, meaning that each cell in the table reflects the count of observations that fall into the respective categories defined by the two variables under consideration. This approach allows researchers to analyze the relationship between these categorical variables effectively.

In contrast, tables commonly used in factorial designs typically summarize means and variances of continuous variables. These tables aid in analyzing the effects of multiple independent variables on a dependent variable, where the focus is on measuring the average outcome rather than counting occurrences.

Since contingency tables aggregate count data (frequencies) rather than statistical measures like means, they are particularly suited for assessing the independence or association between categorical variables rather than evaluating continuous data or complex experimental designs like ANOVA.