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ANOVA Test How To

An ANOVA test compares the means of two or more groups to determine if there are any statistically significant differences between them. A one-way ANOVA looks at one independent variable with two or more levels, while a two-way ANOVA examines two independent variables that may interact. Groups refer to the different levels within each independent variable. Replication means testing multiple groups. Common types of ANOVA tests include one-way between groups ANOVA and two-way ANOVA with or without replication.

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116 views4 pages

ANOVA Test How To

An ANOVA test compares the means of two or more groups to determine if there are any statistically significant differences between them. A one-way ANOVA looks at one independent variable with two or more levels, while a two-way ANOVA examines two independent variables that may interact. Groups refer to the different levels within each independent variable. Replication means testing multiple groups. Common types of ANOVA tests include one-way between groups ANOVA and two-way ANOVA with or without replication.

Uploaded by

Madison Hartfield
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ANOVA Test

An ANOVA test is a way to find out if survey or experiment results are significant. In other
words, they help you to figure out if you need to reject the null hypothesis or accept the alternate
hypothesis. Basically, you’re testing groups to see if there’s a difference between them.
Examples of when you might want to test different groups:

 A group of psychiatric patients are trying three different therapies: counseling,


medication and biofeedback. You want to see if one therapy is better than the others.

 A manufacturer has two different processes to make light bulbs. They want to know if
one process is better than the other.

 Students from different colleges take the same exam. You want to see if one college
outperforms the other.

What Does “One-Way” or “Two-Way Mean?

One-way or two-way refers to the number of independent variables (IVs) in your Analysis of


Variance test. One-way has one independent variable (with 2 levels) and two-way has two
independent variables (can have multiple levels). For example, a one-way Analysis of Variance
could have one IV (brand of cereal) and a two-way Analysis of Variance has two IVs (brand of
cereal, calories).

What are “Groups” or “Levels”?

Groups or levels are different groups in the same independent variable. In the above example,
your levels for “brand of cereal” might be Lucky Charms, Raisin Bran, Cornflakes — a total of
three levels. Your levels for “Calories” might be: sweetened, unsweetened — a total of two
levels.
Let’s say you are studying if Alcoholics Anonymous and individual counseling combined is the
most effective treatment for lowering alcohol consumption. You might split the study
participants into three groups or levels: medication only, medication and counseling, and
counseling only. Your dependent variable would be the number of alcoholic beverages
consumed per day.
If your groups or levels have a hierarchical structure (each level has unique subgroups), then use
a nested ANOVAfor the analysis.
What Does “Replication” Mean?

It’s whether you are replicating your test(s) with multiple groups. With a two way ANOVA with
replication , you have two groups and individuals within that group are doing more than one
thing (i.e. two groups of students from two colleges taking two tests). If you only have one group
taking two tests, you would use without replication.

Types of Tests.

There are two main types: one-way and two-way. Two-way tests
can be with or without replication.
 One-way ANOVA between groups: used when you want to
test two groups to see if there’s a difference between them.

 Two way ANOVA without replication: used when you


have one group and you’re double-testing that same group.
For example, you’re testing one set of individuals before and
after they take a medication to see if it works or not.

 Two way ANOVA with replication: Two groups, and the


members of those groups are doing more than one thing.
For example, two groups of patients from different hospitals
trying two different therapies.
One Way ANOVA

A one way ANOVA is used to compare two means from two independent (unrelated) groups
using the F-distribution. The null hypothesis for the test is that the two means are equal.
Therefore, a significant result means that the two means are unequal.

When to use a one way ANOVA

Situation 1: You have a group of individuals randomly split into smaller groups and completing
different tasks. For example, you might be studying the effects of tea on weight loss and form
three groups: green tea, black tea, and no tea.

Situation 2: Similar to situation 1, but in this case the individuals are split into groups based on
an attribute they possess. For example, you might be studying leg strength of people according to
weight. You could split participants into weight categories (obese, overweight and normal) and
measure their leg strength on a weight machine.

Limitations of the One Way ANOVA

A one way ANOVA will tell you that at least two groups were different from each other. But it
won’t tell you what groups were different. If your test returns a significant f-statistic, you may
need to run an ad hoc test (like the Least Significant Difference test) to tell you exactly which
groups had a difference in means.
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Two Way ANOVA

A Two Way ANOVA is an extension of the One Way ANOVA.

With a One Way, you have one independent variableaffecting a dependent variable.

With a Two Way ANOVA, there are two independents.

Use a two way ANOVA when you have one measurement variable (i.e. a quantitative variable)
and two nominal variables.

In other words, if your experiment has a quantitative outcome and you have two
categorical explanatory variables, a two way ANOVA is appropriate.

For example, you might want to find out if there is an interaction between income and gender for
anxiety level at job interviews. The anxiety level is the outcome, or the variable that can be
measured. Gender and Income are the two categorical variables. These categorical variables are
also the independent variables, which are called factors in a Two Way ANOVA.

The factors can be split into levels. In the above example, income level could be split into three
levels: low, middle and high income. Gender could be split into three levels: male, female, and
transgender. Treatment groups are all possible combinations of the factors. In this example there
would be 3 x 3 = 9 treatment groups.

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