Running Head: DISCUSSION FIVE

Discussion Five
1. According to Figure 13.1, what are the decision points that tell you ANOVA is the right
procedure to use?
I followed a sequence of four steps to navigate Figure 13.1. The first step that leads up to
ANOVA is determining that we are testing for differences among scores of different groups
(Salkind, 2013). Following the chart, when we select that participants will not be tested more
than once and there are more than two groups, we land on simple analysis of variance
(Salkind, 2013).
2. What are factorial design ANOVAs? Can you give an example of a 2 2 design? What
about a 3 2 design?
Factorial design ANOVAs are more complex than simple ANOVA because there is more
than one treatment factor being explored (Salkind, 2013). Additionally, factorial ANOVA is
broken down into tests with replication and those without replication (Salkind, 2013). An
example of a 2x2 design would be a study examining two levels of training and gender
(Salkind, 2013). An example of a 3x2 design would be three levels such as group 1, group 2,
and group 3 of one grouping factor such as hours of practice with two levels such as gender
(male/female) (Salkind, 2013).
3. What is a main effect? Where are main effects found within the source table? How are
they interpreted? Can main effects be plotted? If so, how?
A main effect is when a factor or independent variable has a significant effect upon the
outcome variable (Salkind, 2013). Main effects are found in a source table under the Sig.
column, which represents the significance level (Salkind, 2013). To explain how results are

DISCUSSION FIVE

interpreted, I will focus on an example from the book that has two factors gender (male or
female) and treatment (high or low impact exercise) (Salkind, 2013). The outcome is weight
loss. Using the p<0.05 level of significance, we can determine that there is a main effect for
gender since p=.000, no main effect for impact since p=.091, and no interaction between the
two main factors since p=.665 (Salkind, 2013). So what does this mean? Weight loss was
not impacted by high or low impact exercise but was impacted by gender (Salkind, 2013).
Additionally, there were no differential effects for treatment across gender (Salkind, 2013).
Main effects can be plotted by using mean scores across treatments, with treatment being on
the x axis and weight loss on the y axis (Salkind, 2013).
4. What is an interaction effect? Where would interaction effects be found within the
source table? How should they be interpreted? Can interaction effects be plotted? If so,
how?
An interaction effect is defined as the outcome in which the effect of one factor is
differentiated across a different factor (Salkind, 2013). To illustrate how interaction effects
are displayed on a source table and interpreted, I will use the example from chapter 14 where
men and women are affected differentially across treatments (Salkind, 2013). We are still
looking at significance in the source table but mainly the row in which we have two factors
in the source column (Salkind, 2013). Looking at the significance for treatment x gender,
there is a main effect of p=.004 since level of significance is p<0.05 (Salkind, 2013). This
means that treatment has an impact differentially on weight loss of males and females
(Salkind, 2013). Interaction effects can certainly be plotted by using averages across
treatments for males and females in which treatment is plotted on the x axis and weight loss
is plotted on the y axis (Salkind, 2013).

DISCUSSION FIVE

References
Salkind, N.J. (2013). Statistics for people who (think they) hate statistics (The third Excel 2010
edition). Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage Publication.