CATANOVA for ordinal variables using orthogonal polynomials with different scoring methods

ABSTRACT

In the context of categorical data analysis, the CATegorical ANalysis Of Variance (CATANOVA) has been proposed to analyse the scheme variable-factor, both for nominal and ordinal variables. This method is based on the C statistic and allows to test the statistical significance of the tau index using its relationship with the C statistic. Through Emerson orthogonal polynomials (EOP) a useful decomposition of C statistic into bivariate moments (location, dispersion and higher order components) has been developed. In the construction of EOP the categories are replaced by scores, typically natural scores. In the paper, we provide an overview of the main scoring schemes focusing on the advantages and the statistical properties; we pay special attention to the impact of the chosen scores on the C statistic of CATANOVA and the graphical representations of doubly ordered non-symmetrical correspondence analysis. Through a real data example, we show the impact of the scoring schemes and we consider the RV and multidimensional scaling as tools to measure similarity among the results achieved with each method.

KEYWORDS:

• Contingency table
• ordinal variable
• CATANOVA
• C statistic
• doubly ordered non-symmetrical correspondence analysis
• Goodman–Kruskal τ
• Emerson orthogonal polynomials
• scoring scheme

ORCID

Pasquale Sarnacchiaro  http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4979-0918