ABSTRACT
The chi-square statistical test is named after the Greek letter chi, which is the symbol χ2, used to represent this statistic in formulas and results. Chi-square is the usual test of the null hypothesis for differences between the frequencies that are observed and the expected frequencies. Suppose researchers drew at random a sample of 200 members of an association of sociologists and asked them whether they were in favor of a proposed change to their bylaws. The sample size number 200 is referred to by the letter n. Values of chi-square that reflect significance depend on the degrees of freedom, which sets an important parameter in the calculations and is equal to the number of categories minus 1. According to the decision rule that probability must be equal to or less than.05 for the rejection of the null hypothesis, the null hypothesis should not be rejected, which is called a statistically insignificant result.
