Introduction to ANOVA

Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is a statistical method used to test differences

between two or more means. It may seem odd that the technique is called
"Analysis of Variance" rather than "Analysis of Means." As you will see, the name
is appropriate because inferences about means are made by analyzing variance.

ANOVA is used to test general rather than specific differences among means.
This can be seen best by example. In the case study "Smiles and Leniency," the
effect of different types of smiles on the leniency shown to a person was
investigated. Four different types of smiles (neutral, false, felt, miserable) were
investigated.

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.

One Way ANOVA and Two Way ANOVA

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).

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.

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.

When to use Two Way ANOVA

A Two Way ANOVA is an extension of the One Way ANOVA. With a One Way,
you have one independent variable affecting 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.

Assumptions for Two Way ANOVA

The population must be close to a normal distribution.

Samples must be independent.

Population variances must be equal.

Groups must have equal sample sizes.

How to run an ANOVA

Run a One-Way ANOVA

The following steps reflect SPSS’s dedicated One-Way ANOVA procedure.

However, since the One-Way ANOVA is also part of the General Linear Model
(GLM) family of statistical tests, it can also be conducted via the Univariate GLM
procedure (“univariate” refers to one dependent variable). This latter method may
be beneficial if your analysis goes beyond the simple One-Way ANOVA and
involves multiple independent variables, fixed and random factors, and/or
weighting variables and covariates (e.g., One-Way ANCOVA). We proceed by
explaining how to run a One-Way ANOVA using SPSS’s dedicated procedure.

To run a One-Way ANOVA in SPSS, click Analyze > Compare Means > One-
Way ANOVA.

The One-Way ANOVA window opens, where you will specify the variables to be
used in the analysis. All of the variables in your dataset appear in the list on the
left side. Move variables to the right by selecting them in the list and clicking the
blue arrow buttons. You can move a variable(s) to either of two
areas: Dependent List or Factor.

A Dependent List: The dependent variable(s). This is the variable whose

means will be compared between the samples (groups). You may run multiple
means comparisons simultaneously by selecting more than one dependent
variable.

B Factor: The independent variable. The categories (or groups) of the

independent variable will define which samples will be compared. The

independent variable must have at least two categories (groups), but usually has
three or more groups when used in a One-Way ANOVA.

C Contrasts: (Optional) Specify contrasts, or planned comparisons, to be

conducted after the overall ANOVA test.

When the initial F test indicates that significant differences exist between group
means, contrasts are useful for determining which specific means are
significantly different when you have specific hypotheses that you wish to test.
Contrasts are decided before analyzing the data (i.e., a priori). Contrasts break
down the variance into component parts. They may involve using weights, non-
orthogonal comparisons, standard contrasts, and polynomial contrasts (trend
analysis).

Many online and print resources detail the distinctions among these options and
will help users select appropriate contrasts. Please see the IBM SPSS guide for
detailed information on Contrasts by clicking the ? button at the bottom of the
dialog box.

D Post Hoc: (Optional) Request post hoc (also known as multiple comparisons)

tests. Specific post hoc tests can be selected by checking the associated boxes.
1 Equal Variances Assumed: Multiple comparisons options that

assume homogeneity of variance (each group has equal variance). For detailed
information about the specific comparison methods, click the Help button in this
window.

2 Test: By default, a 2-sided hypothesis test is selected. Alternatively, a

directional, one-sided hypothesis test can be specified if you choose to use a

Dunnett post hoc test. Click the box next to Dunnett and then specify whether
the Control Category is the Last or First group, numerically, of your grouping
variable. In the Test area, click either < Control or > Control. The one-tailed
options require that you specify whether you predict that the mean for the
specified control group will be less than (> Control) or greater than (< Control)
another group.

3 Equal Variances Not Assumed: Multiple comparisons options that do not

assume equal variances. For detailed information about the specific comparison
methods, click the Help button in this window.
4 Significance level: The desired cutoff for statistical significance. By default,

significance is set to 0.05.

When the initial F test indicates that significant differences exist between group
means, post hoc tests are useful for determining which specific means are
significantly different when you do not have specific hypotheses that you wish to
test. Post hoc tests compare each pair of means (like t-tests), but unlike t-tests,
they correct the significance estimate to account for the multiple comparisons.

E Options: Clicking Options will produce a window where you can specify

which Statistics to include in the output (Descriptive, Fixed and random effects,
Homogeneity of variance test, Brown-Forsythe, Welch), whether to include
a Means plot, and how the analysis will address Missing Values (i.e., Exclude
cases analysis by analysis or Exclude cases listwise). Click Continue when
you are finished making specifications.

Click OK to run the One-Way ANOVA.

Difference Between T-test and ANOVA

BASIS FOR T-TEST ANOVA

COMPARISON

Meaning T-test is a hypothesis test ANOVA is a statistical technique

that is used to compare that is used to compare the
the means of two means of more than two
populations. populations.

Test statistic (x ̄-µ)/(s/√n) Between Sample

Variance/Within Sample
Variance

1. The t-test is used when determining whether two averages or means are
the same or different. The ANOVA is preferred when comparing three or
more averages or means.
2. A t-test has more odds of committing an error the more means are used,
which is why ANOVA is used when comparing two or more means.