Two general measures for the degree of association in a contingency table are the contingency coefficients defined by PEARSON and KRAMER. In the case of a standardized bivariate normal distribution with correlation coefficient of the variables, whose realizations constitute the rows and columns of the table, the density functions of the two listed association measures are derived.

In addition to the enumeration of some test criteria for testing the hypothesis about the same degree of association in k 2 × 2-contingency tables used in the literature the present paper derives a test criterion for testing a corresponding hypothesis in k r ×2-contingency tables.