ANOVA (F-TEST)

One-way Analysis of Variance

ANOVA
 Analysis of Variance
 Used to analyze the difference between the means
of more than two groups.

A one-way ANOVA uses one independent

variable, while a two-way ANOVA uses two
independent variables.
One-way ANOVA example

As a crop researcher, you want to test the effect of three different

fertilizer mixtures on crop yield. You can use a one-way ANOVA to
find out if there is a difference in crop yields between the three
groups.

Two-Way ANOVA: Example

A botanist wants to know whether or not plant growth is influenced by

sunlight exposure and watering frequency. She plants 40 seeds and
lets them grow for two months under different conditions for sunlight
exposure and watering frequency. After two months, she records the
height of each plant.
When to use a one-way ANOVA

Use a one-way ANOVA when you have collected data about

one categorical independent variable and one quantitative dependent
variable. The independent variable should have at least
three levels (i.e. at least three different groups or categories).
ANOVA tells you if the dependent variable changes according to the
level of the independent variable.
•Your independent variable is social media use, and you assign
groups to low, medium, and high levels of social media use to find
out if there is a difference in hours of sleep per night.

•Your independent variable is brand of soda, and you collect data

on Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, and Fanta to find out if there is a difference
in the price per 100ml.

•You independent variable is type of fertilizer, and you treat crop

fields with mixtures 1, 2 and 3 to find out if there is a difference
in crop yield.
Null hypothesis (H0)

There is no difference among group means.

Alternative hypothesis (Ha)

At least one group differs significantly from the overall mean of the
dependent variable.
How does an ANOVA test work?

ANOVA determines whether the groups created by the levels of the

independent variable are statistically different by calculating whether
the means of the treatment levels are different from the overall mean
of the dependent variable.

If any of the group means is significantly different from

the overall mean, then the null hypothesis is rejected.
The F test compares the variance in each group mean from the
overall group variance. If the variance within groups is smaller
than the variance between groups, the F test will find a
higher F value, and therefore a higher likelihood that the difference
observed is real and not due to chance.

The variance is a measure of variability. It is calculated by taking the

average of squared deviations from the mean.

Variance tells you the degree of spread in your data set. The more
spread the data, the larger the variance is in relation to the mean.
In experiments, a different independent variable treatment or
manipulation is used in each condition to assess whether there is a
cause-and-effect relationship with a dependent variable.

In a within-subjects design, or a within-groups design, all participants

take part in every condition. It’s the opposite of a between-subjects
design, where each participant experiences only one condition.

A within-subjects design is also called a dependent

groups or repeated measures design because researchers
compare related measures from the same participants between
different conditions.
Source: https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/between-subjects-design/
In experiments, you test the effect of an independent variable by
creating conditions where different treatments (e.g., a placebo pill vs
a new medication) are applied.

In a between-subjects design, also called a between-groups design,

every participant experiences only one condition, and you compare
group differences between participants in various conditions. It’s the
opposite of a within-subjects design, where every participant
experiences every condition.

A between-subjects design is also called an independent

measures or independent-groups design because researchers
compare unrelated measurements taken from separate groups.
Source: https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/between-subjects-design/
Assumptions of ANOVA

The assumptions of the ANOVA test are the same as the general
assumptions for any parametric test:

1. Independence of observations: the data were collected using

statistically valid sampling methods, and there are no hidden
relationships among observations. If your data fail to meet this
assumption because you have a confounding variable that you
need to control for statistically, use an ANOVA with blocking
variables.
2. Normally-distributed response variable: The values of the
dependent variable follow a normal distribution.

3. Homogeneity of variance: The variation within each group

being compared is similar for every group. If the variances are
different among the groups, then ANOVA probably isn’t the right fit
for the data.
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 pharmaceutical company has developed three new blood

pressure medications. The company gives the drug to patients in
three different age ranges. The company wants to know if there
are differences in blood pressure due to the medication, the age
of the patients, or if there is any interaction between the type of
medication and the patient age.
Students from different colleges take the same exam. You
want to see if one college outperforms the other.

A pet food company uses four different manufacturing plants to

make a certain kind of dog food. They want to make sure that
each plant produces food with the same concentration of a
certain nutrient. Data is collected on the concentration of the
nutrient in food made by each plant, and the data is analyzed to
determine if there are any differences between the four different
plants.
Four treatments for fever blisters, including a placebo (A), were
randomly assigned to 20 patients. The data below show, for each
treatment, the numbers of days from initial appearance of the
blisters until healing is complete

A manufacturer has two different processes to make light bulbs.

They want to know if one process is better than the other.
An advertising agency shows three new ads for a product to a
focus group and asks the group to rate how likely they are to buy
the product after viewing each ad. The company wants to know if
one ad is more effective than the others.

In a study to compare the body sizes of silkworms, three

genotypes were of interest: heterozygous (HET), homozygous
(HOM) and wild (WLD). The length, in millimetres, of a separately
reared cocoon of each genotype was measured at each of
five randomly chosen sites.
In an experiment to investigate the warping of copper plates, the
two factors studied were the temperature and the copper content
of the plates. The response variable was a measure of the
amount of warping.