How to determine which category results in the highest# most often

**adhamija** · 05-29-2012, 04:59 PM

I have 3 categories, Size1/Size2/Size3 , for each individual. Each of these result in a different count. For instance,

Person Size 1 Size 2 Size 3
1 20 40 15
2 35 15 60
3 14 90 27

I want to see which size (Size1, Size2, Size3) will result in the HIGHEST count (the independent variable) most often. For example, will size 1, on average, produce a HIGHEST count most often?

How do you suggest I go about this?

Thank you very much,
Anish

**ron2k_1** · 05-29-2012, 05:13 PM

If you add each size column. Wouldn't the sum of the three columns give you an idea as to which size has on average the biggest sizes?

**adhamija** · 05-29-2012, 05:30 PM

Thanks for the reply, Ron. That's a good idea, but unfortunately the differences between the sizes (e.g. difference between Person 1's Size 1 and Person 2's Size 1) is so large that it would yield an inaccurate result. For instance, consider the following data:

Person Size1 Size2 Size3
1 340 10 20
2 70 140 100
3 10 50 80

If I were to add the #'s for the Size columns, the result would imply that Size 1 produces the largest # on average. However, that would be most likely false and skewed because Size 1 only gave a large # in person 1.

What do you think? Any other ideas?

Thanks again,
Anish

**ron2k_1** · 05-29-2012, 05:44 PM

How about this. Assuming that your table starts in A Row1. Col A: Person, col B: Size 1, Col C:Size 2, col D: Size 3, and all these headers are in Row 1. So that means that your data starts in Row 2. You can then enter the following in E2 and drag down:

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That formula will give you the header (Size 1, Size 2, Size 3) for which had the highest size. So in your last example, the formula will give you in E2: Size1, E3: Size2, E4:Size3. There is a stale mate there as each of your three examples had a different size as the highest occurence. Nonetheless, in your worksheet you can then do a count of all Size1's, Size2's, Size3's and see which as the highest. You can then hide this helper column (Column E)