In
statistics, a
contingency table is a type of
table in a
matrix format that displays the (multivariate)
frequency distribution of the variables. They are heavily used in survey research, business intelligence, engineering and scientific research. They provide a basic picture of the interrelation between two variables and can help find interactions between them. The term
contingency table was first used by
Karl Pearson in "On the Theory of Contingency and Its Relation to Association and Normal Correlation", part of the
Drapers' Company Research Memoirs Biometric Series I published in 1904.