CHAPTER VIII

Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)

Learning Objectives:
Given the learning materials and activities of this chapter, the students will be able to:
 Distinguish ANOVA from t-test and z-test.
 Identify the application of ANOVA in hypothesis testing.
 Determine problems and research situations in which ANOVA may be appropriate.
 Perform the ANOVA procedure to compare means of several groups simultaneously.
 Interpret the result obtained from ANOVA table using classical method of hypothesis
testing.

Introduction
The term analysis of variance as abbreviated (ANOVA) is a technique that used the F test
to test a hypothesis concerning the means of three or more populations. This is the statistical test
most widely used in inferential statistics. It is a very powerful test of significance with many
functions, such as: to test the equality of several means simultaneously, determine the significant
difference in the population variances of two groups to name a few.
Assumptions in the use of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)
1. The population distribution sampled are approximately normal with means 𝜇1 , 𝜇2,… 𝜇𝑘 and
population variance 𝜎 2 .
2. The subject or element in each sample are randomly selected and the samples are
independent from one another.
3. The variance of the groups analyzed are homogeneous.
4. The sample observation is quantitative measurement.

Two different estimates of the population variance are made. The first estimate is called
the between-group variance. It involves computing the variance by using the means of the groups
or between the groups. The other one is the within-group variance, this is made by computing
the variance using all the data. It is not affected by differences in the means.
In general, analysis of variance comprises a large body of related techniques, all of which
involve comparing means indirectly via the computation of F-ratios. There are several types of
analysis of variances, but in this text, we focus on One-way Analysis of Variance or also known
as Single Factor ANOVA. This is used when there is only one independent variable, that is, the
classification of observation is based on a single criterion.
Suppose there are m groups or populations of interest and there are kth group of means,
then 𝜇1 , 𝜇2,… 𝜇𝑘 denotes the mean population of the first, second, and kth groups. Thus, for a test
of the differences among three or more means, the following hypothesis are:
 𝐻𝑜 : 𝜇1 = 𝜇2 = 𝜇3 = …𝜇𝑘 - the null hypothesis which means that there is no significant
difference among the means of kth sample.
𝐻𝑎 : At least one mean is different from the others.
If there is no difference in the means, the between-group variance estimate will
approximately be equal to the within-group variance estimate, and the F test ratio value will be
approximately equal to 1. Otherwise, the F test value will be significantly larger than 1, if the
between-group variance estimate will be much larger than the within-group variance.
Like the t-test, F-test used two degrees of degrees of freedom 𝑑𝑓1 = 𝑘 − 1, where k is the
number of groups and 𝑑𝑓2 = 𝑛 − 𝑘 where n is the sum of sample sizes of the groups, n = 𝑛1 +
𝑛2 + 𝑛3 + ⋯ + 𝑛𝑘 . One of the assumptions in One – way ANOVA is the sample sizes need not to
be equal. Further, the F-test to compare the means is always right-tailed test. The F-test value will
be obtained from the table of F distribution in Appendix E.
Table below shows the summary for a one-way ANOVA.
Sources of Sum of Squares Degrees of Mean Squares Computed F-
Variation Freedom ratio
Between-groups SSB k–1 MSB 𝑀𝑆𝐵
𝐹=
Within-groups SSW n–k MSW 𝑀𝑆𝑊
Total SST n-1
The between-group sum of squares, denoted by SSB and the formula is
𝑇2 𝑇2 𝑇2 (∑ 𝑥)2
SSB = (𝑛1 + 𝑛2 + ⋯ + 𝑛𝑘 ) −
1 2 𝑘 𝑛

Where;
𝑇𝑖 = 1, 2, …, k = sum of sample in the ith group
The within-group sum of squares, denoted by SSW and the formula is
𝑇2 𝑇2 𝑇2
SSW = ∑ 𝑥 2 − (𝑛1 + 𝑛2 + ⋯ + 𝑛𝑘 )
1 2 𝑘

While total sum of squares, denoted by SST and formula is

SST = SSB + SSW
The variance between-groups and variance within-groups are calculated using the following
formulas.
The MSB formula is
𝑆𝑆𝐵
𝑀𝑆𝐵 = 𝐾−1

and the MSW formula is

𝑆𝑆𝑊
𝑀𝑆𝑊 = 𝑛−𝑘
Example 1: In an experiment to determine the effect of nutrition on the attention spans of
elementary school students, a group of 15 students were randomly assigned to each of three meal
plans: no breakfast, light breakfast, and full breakfast. Their attention span (in minutes) were
recorded during a morning reading period and are shown in the table below.
Table shows the attention span of students after three meal plans
No Breakfast Light Breakfast Full Breakfast
8 14 10
7 16 12
9 12 16
13 17 15
10 11 12
At 0.05 level of significance, perform a test of hypothesis that is there a sufficient evidence to
indicate a difference in the average attention spans depending on the type of breakfast eaten by the
student?
Solution: Let 𝜇1 , 𝜇2 , 𝜇3 be the mean attention spans of the students to each three meal plans
respectively.
1. State the null and alternative hypothesis.
Ho: 𝜇1 = 𝜇2 = 𝜇3 (there is no significant difference in the mean attention span of the
students in the meal plans)
𝐻𝑎 : At least two of the means are not equal.
2. Level of significance: α = 0.05.
3. Select an appropriate test statistic.
Analysis of Variance using the F-test
𝑀𝑆𝐵
𝐹=
𝑀𝑆𝑊

with k– 1 = 3 – 1 = 2 degrees of freedom and n – k = 15 – 3 = 12.

4. Determine the critical value and critical region
Since the level of significance is 0.05 and df (2,12), the critical value (𝐹α/2 ) = 3.89. Reject
Ho, if F computed is greater than 3.89.
5. Compute the value of the test statistics:
First calculate the ∑ 𝑥 2 and ∑ 𝑥
∑ 𝑥 2 =82 + 72 + 92 + ⋯ + 122 = 2,338 and ∑ 𝑥 =8 + 7 + 9 + … + 12 = 182.
The sum the three meal plans are
Let 𝑇1, 𝑇2 , 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑇3 − 𝑠𝑢𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑛𝑜 light and full breakfast
𝑇1 = 47 𝑇2 = 70 𝑇3 = 65
Substitute all the values in the formula for SSB and SSW.
𝑇2 𝑇2 𝑇2 (∑ 𝑥)2 472 702 652 (182)2
SSB = (𝑛1 + 𝑛2 + 𝑛3 ) − =( + + )− = 58.53. and
1 2 3 𝑛 5 5 5 15
 𝑇2 𝑇2 𝑇2 472 702 652
SSW = ∑ 𝑥 2 − (𝑛1 + 𝑛2 + 𝑛3 )=2,338 - ( + + ) = 71.20
1 2 3 5 5 5

And the mean squares between and within samples are

58.53
𝑀𝑆𝐵 = = 29.27
3−1
71.20
And 𝑀𝑆𝑊 = 15−3 = 5.93

Therefore, the value of F test statistics is

29.27
𝐹= = 4.94
5.93
The results are summarized in the One-way ANOVA table
Sources of Sum of Squares Degrees of Mean Squares Computed F-
Variation Freedom ratio
Between-groups 58.53 2 29.27 4.94
Within-groups 71.20 11 5.93
Total 129.73 14

6. Decision: Since the computed F = 4.94 is greater than 3.89, thus, we reject Ho at 0.05 level
of significance.
7. Conclusion:
Therefore, there is a sufficient evidence to indicate that there is a significant difference
in the average attention spans depending on the type of breakfast eaten by the student.

Occasionally, when ANOVA results lead to a rejection of the null hypothesis, this implies
a significant overall difference in the means of the groups being studied. Statisticians have
developed several tests for making multiple comparisons after a significant F test to pinpoint which
particular means differ significantly from which specific other means. These multiple comparison
is also known as Post hoc analysis. These include the Duncan’s Multiple Range (DMR) test,
Scheffe’s test and Tukey’s HSD test, to name a few. However, the procedure for these tests will
be not discussed here but the interested reader may encourage to refer to more advance statistics
textbooks for more detailed discussion on these tests.