Example of Cross-Tab.

Example of Cross-Tab.

• A. Comparing social media use by class year.
• B. Calculating overall sample mean.
• C. Running a t-test.
• D. Computing a regression coefficient.

Answer: (A)

Cross-tabulation examines the relationship between two categorical variables by showing how the distribution of one variable differs across the categories of the other. Here, class year is a categorical variable (for example, freshman, sophomore, junior, senior) and social media use can be categorized (such as high, medium, low). A cross-tab would lay out counts or percentages of students in each class year within each use category, making it easy to see whether social media use patterns vary by class year. This direct comparison of distributions across two categorical variables is exactly what cross-tabulation is designed to do. The other options don’t fit as cross-tabs. Calculating an overall sample mean summarizes a single number for the whole dataset, not how two categories relate. A t-test compares the means of a continuous outcome across two groups, which is about mean differences rather than joint distributions of two categorical variables. A regression coefficient estimates the relationship between variables, often with a continuous outcome or via dummy coding, but it isn’t the contingency-table style comparison that cross-tabs provide.

Cross-tabulation examines the relationship between two categorical variables by showing how the distribution of one variable differs across the categories of the other. Here, class year is a categorical variable (for example, freshman, sophomore, junior, senior) and social media use can be categorized (such as high, medium, low). A cross-tab would lay out counts or percentages of students in each class year within each use category, making it easy to see whether social media use patterns vary by class year. This direct comparison of distributions across two categorical variables is exactly what cross-tabulation is designed to do.

The other options don’t fit as cross-tabs. Calculating an overall sample mean summarizes a single number for the whole dataset, not how two categories relate. A t-test compares the means of a continuous outcome across two groups, which is about mean differences rather than joint distributions of two categorical variables. A regression coefficient estimates the relationship between variables, often with a continuous outcome or via dummy coding, but it isn’t the contingency-table style comparison that cross-tabs provide.