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Bad Cells

A bad cell, in Chi-square parlance, means a cell in a crosstabulation where the expected value is less than 5.

In Survey6 such cells are shown in red. It basically means you haven't got enough of these (whatever they are) to reach a conclusion.

For example if, in a survey, you had an age category "95 and over" you might find that in the end you only had 5 such people. By the time you have broken down these 5 into those who thought the film was "Great", "Good", "Indifferent", "Bad" and "Lousy" then, at best, you have one in each slot. Probably you will have empty slots (cells).

Suppose you have NO people over 95 who thought the film was "Great". Obviously there's no way you can tell anything about such people as you never found one.

One answer to the problem might be to take a larger sample hoping to get more over 95's. Another approach would be to COMBINE the age categories - for example, make yourself an "over 55" category - and run the test again. You won't be able to draw conclusions about the over 95's but you may get some blood out of the stone.

To combine rows and columns in Survey6 check the relevant boxes and press "COMBINE".