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A very controversial use of ANCOVA is to correct for initial

group differences (prior to assigned to x) that exists on y among


several intact, state variable groups. For example, we may be only
able to use two intact, separate classrooms to evaluate the relative
efficacy of two teaching methods. Any pre-existing classroom
differences (e.g. reading comprehension) will be confounded with our
x variable. In this use of ANCOVA, we use some covariate (which
predicts y to some extent) to make the treatment groups more
equivalent to each other by removing from y that portion predictable
by z. In short, we attempt to eliminate initial group differences on y
which are confounded with x so that if a treatment effect does occur,
we can be more confident that the treatment effect was not simply the
result of pre-existing differences.

Since experimental and control groups are unequal in


size, significant differences existed between the
experimental and control groups in their pre-test means
scores before at the beginning of the semester. Analysis of
Covariance (ANCOVA) was run using the post-test scores as
the response variable and the pre-test scores as the
covariate to correct for chance differences that existed when
the subjects were assigned to the treatment groups. This
correction resulted in the adjustment of group means for
pre-existing differences caused by sampling error and
reduction of the size of the error variance of the analysis.

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