CAinterprTools: An R package to help interpreting Correspondence Analysis’ results

Abstract

Correspondence Analysis (CA) is a statistical exploratory technique frequently used in many research fields to graphically visualize the structure of contingency tables. Many programs, both commercial and free, perform CA but none of them as yet provides a visual aid to the interpretation of the results. The ‘CAinterprTools’ package, designed to be used in the free R statistical environment, aims at filling that gap. A novel-to-medium R user has been considered as target. 15 commands enable to easily obtain charts that help (and are relevant to) the interpretation of the CA’s results, freeing the user from the need to inspect and scrutinize tabular CA outputs, and to look up values and statistics on which further calculations are necessary. The package also implements tests to assess the significance of the input table’s total inertia and individual dimensions. Keywords: Correspondence analysis, Contingency tables, Interpretation, R, Package