Why is it important to consider sample size?

 To have a high chance of detec/ng a clinically important treatment effect if it exists.

 To ensure appropriate precision of es/mates.

 To avoid was/ng resources and the /me of par/cipants.

 To avoid misleading conclusions.

In clinical trials…
From an ethical perspective:

Too few subjects:

•  Cannot adequately address study question. The time, discomfort and

risk to subjects have served no purpose.

•  May conclude no effect of an intervention that is beneficial. Current

and future subjects may not benefit from new intervention based on
current (inconclusive) study.
 Too many subjects:

•  Too many subjects unnecessarily exposed to risk.

•  Should enroll only enough patients to answer study question, to minimize
the discomfort and risk subjects may be exposed to.
 When is a sample size calculation not
necessary?

•  Truly qualitative research

•  Pilot studies that will be used to inform larger studies (and not make
conclusions).
•  Assume that you plan an experiment with just two groups (Treated and Control)
and that you will measure a metric character.

•  Your null hypothesis is that there is no difference between the means of the two
groups. The steps that you need to take are as follows:

•  Decide on your alterna/ve hypothesis. This will be either that the means differ
(two sided) or they differ in a par/cular direc/on (one sided).
•  The default is two sided.
•  Decide the significance level you plan to use.
•  We will assume 5%.
•  Decide what power you want (i.e. the chance of detec/ng a real effect if it is
present).
•  If the consequences of failing to detect the effect (a Type II error) could be
serious, such as in toxicity tes/ng, you might want a rela/vely high power such as
90%.
•  In fundamental studies where we may only be interested in large effects a Type II
error may not have such serious consequences. An 80% power may be sufficient
to catch large effects and fewer subjects will be needed.
•  Obtain an es/mate of the noise, i.e. the standard devia/on of the character of
interest. This has to come from a previous study, the literature or a pilot study.

•  If using the literature it may be best to look at several papers and take some sort
of (possibly informal) average..
•  Es/mate the signal (effect size) that might interest you.
•  How large a difference between the two means would be of scien/fic or clinical interest?
•  If the difference is only small, you are probably not par/cularly interested in it.
•  If it is large, then you certainly want to be able to detect it.
•  The signal is the cutoff between these two alterna/ves. If the response is larger, then there
will be an even greater chance of detec/ng it.
•  Your pilot study analyzed with a Student t-test reveals that group 1 (N=29) has a mean score of
30.1 (SD, 2.8) and that group 2 (N=30) has a mean score of 28.5 (SD, 3.5).
•  The calculated P value = .06, and on the surface, the difference appears not significantly different.
•  However, the calculated effect size is 0.5, which is considered ‘‘medium’’ according to Cohen.
•  In order to test your hypothesis and determine if this finding is real or due to chance (ie, to find a
significant difference), with an effect size of 0.5 and P <.05, the power will be too low unless you
expand the sample size to approximately N = 60 in each group, in which case, power will reach .
80.
•  For smaller effect sizes, to avoid a Type II error, you would need to further increase the sample
size.
17-12
17-13
Interpreting Effect Size
•  Usually, guidelines are given for interpreting the effect size
•  Help you to know how important the effect is
•  Only a guide, you can use your own brain to compare
•  In general, r2 is interpreted as:
•  0.01 or smaller, a Trivial Effect
•  0.01 to 0.09, a Small Effect
•  0.09 to 0.25, a Moderate Effect
•  > 0.25, a Large Effect
 Effect Size for Group Differences

•  In general, effect size is a ratio of the mean difference between two groups
and the standard deviation

•  Effect size, when calculated this way, is basically determining how many
standard deviations the two groups are different by
•  E.g., effect size of 1 means the two groups are different by 1 standard deviation (this
would be a big difference)!
Example
•  When working with t-tests, calculating effect size by the mean difference/
SD is called Cohen’s d
•  < 0.1 Trivial effect
•  0.1-0.3 Small effect
•  0.3-0.5 Medium effect
•  > 0.5 Large effect

•  The next slide is the result of a repeated measures t-test from a past
lecture, we’ll calculate Cohen’s d
Paired-Samples t-test Output

•  Mean difference = 2.9, Std. Deviation = 5.2

•  Cohen’s d = 0.55, a large effect size
•  Essentially, the weight loss program reduced body weight by just about half a
standard deviation
Other example
•  I sample a group of 100 ISU students and find their average IQ is 103.
•  Recall, the population mean for IQ is 100, SD = 15.
•  I run a one-sample t-test and find it to be statistically significant (p < 0.05)
•  However, effect size is…
•  0.2, or Small Effect
•  Interpretation: While this difference is likely not due to random sampling error –
it’s not very important either
Other types of effect sizes
•  SPSS will not calculate Cohen’s d for t-tests
•  However, it will calculate effect size for ANOVA’s (if you request it)
•  Not Cohen’s d, but Partial Eta Squared (η2)
•  Similar to r2, interpreted the same way (same scale)
•  Notice, η2 can be used for the entire ‘model’, or each main effect and interaction
individually
•  How would you describe the effect of Tumor Size, or our interaction?
•  Trivial to Small Effect – How did we get a significant p-value?
•  Other factors not in our model are also very important
•  Notice that the r2 is equal to the η2 of the full model
•  The advantage of η2 is that you can evaluate individual effects
 Effect Size Summary
•  Many other types of effect sizes are out there – I just wanted to show you
the effect sizes most commonly used with the tests we know:
•  Correlation and Regression: r2
•  T-tests: Cohen’s d
•  ANOVA: Partial eta squared (η2) and/or r2
A little bit of statistics and data
analysis
PARAMETRIC VS NO-PARAMETRIC
Parametric methods Nonparametric methods
are based on a normal or Gaussian are not based on such parameterized
distribu/on, characterized by the probability distribu/ons or indeed on
mean and the standard devia/on. a n y a s s u m p / o n s a b o u t t h e
The distribu/on of results is probability distribu/on of the data.
symmetric around the mean, with
95% of the results within two
standard devia/ons of the mean. Non-parametric methods are applied
to ordinal data, such as Likert scale
Parametric sta/s/cs are used with data involving the determina/on of
con/nuous, interval data that shows “larger” or “smaller,” i.e., the ranking
equality of intervals or differences. of data
 When should non-parametric tests be
used?
What is normally distributed data?
•  When testing nominal or ordinal
variables The normal distribution curve is like a very
smooth histogram which peaks in the middle
•  The assumptions of parametric test and is symmetrical about the mean.
have not been met
The mean and median are the same for the
normal distribution and 95% of the distribution
lies within two standard deviations of the
mean.
 Why use parametric tests?
Although the non-parametric tests
require fewer assumptions and can
be used on a wider range of data
types, parametric tests are preferred
because non-parametric tests tend
to be less sensitive at detecting
differences between samples or an
effect of the independent variable on
the dependent variable.
In other words, the power
efficiency of the nonparametric
test is lower than its parametric
counterpart.
This means that to detect any given
effect at a specified significance level, a
larger sample size is required for the
non-parametric test than the parametric
test (Robson, 1994).
Some people also argue that
nonparametric methods are most
appropriate when the sample sizes are
small.
PARAMETRIC VS NO-
PARAMETRIC
ASSOCIATION
o PEARSON'S
CORRELATION
o  SPEARMAN'S RANK-
ORDER
o  CHI-SQUARE TEST
PEARSON'S CORRELATION
•  The Pearson product-moment •  Its value can range from -1 for a
correlation is used to determine perfect negative linear
the strength and direction of a relationship to +1 for a perfect
linear relationship between two positive linear relationship. A
continuous variables. More value of 0 (zero) indicates no
specifically, the test generates a relationship between two
coefficient called the Pearson variables.
correlation coefficient, denoted
as r (i.e., the italic lowercase
letter r), and it is this coefficient
that measures the strength and
direction of a linear relationship
between two continuous
variables.
PEARSON'S CORRELATION: WHEN
CAN BE USED?
•  A Pearson's correlation is
most often used to analyse
the results of two types of
study design:
•  (a) to determine if there is a
relationship between two
variables;
•  (b) to determine whether
there is a relationship
between one or more
changes in variables.
PEARSON'S CORRELATION:
EXAMPLES
•  For example, you could use a Pearson's correlation to
determine
•  the strength and direction of a linear relationship between salaries,
measured in US dollars, and length of employment in a firm, measured
in days (i.e., your two continuous variables would be "salary" and
"length of employment").
•  the strength and direction of a linear relationship between reaction
time, measured in milliseconds, and hand grip strength, measured in
kilograms (i.e., your two continuous variables would be "reaction time"
and "hand grip strength).
Basic requirements of the Pearson’s
Correlation
•  Assumption 1: There needs to be
a linear relationship between the
two variables.
•  Assumption 2: There should
be no significant outliers.
Outliers are data points within your
sample that do not follow a similar
pattern to the other data points.
•  Assumption 3: If you wish to run
inferential statistics (null
hypothesis significance testing),
you also need to satisfy the
assumption of bivariate normality.
Establishing if a linear relationship
exists
 PEARSON'S CORRELATION: SPSS
PROCEDURE
Example: time spending to the TV X Cholesterol
PEARSON'S CORRELATION: SPSS
PROCEDURE

Exclude cases pairwise, a missing value for any variable

will only affect the correlation analyses involving that
variable.

Exclude cases listwise is selected, a missing value for

any variable will affect all correlation analyses, not just
those involving the affected variable.
PEARSON'S CORRELATION: SPSS
PROCEDURE

Coefficient Value Strength of
Association
0.1 < | r | < .3 small correlation
0.3 < | r | < .5 medium/moderate correlation
| r | > .5 large/strong correlation

There was a moderate positive correlation between daily

time spent watching TV and cholesterol concentration in
males aged 45 to 65 years, r = .371.


SPEARMAN'S RANK-ORDER
CORRELATION
•  The Spearman's rank-order
correlation (often abbreviated
to Spearman's correlation)
calculates a coefficient, rs or ρ
(pronounced "rho"),
•  It is a measure of the strength
and direction of the
association/relationship
between ordinal and/or
continuous variables.
SPEARMAN'S RANK-ORDER
CORRELATION: WHEN CAN BE USED?
•  You could also use a
Spearman's correlation to
determine whether there is an
association between level of
physical activity and cholesterol
concentration (i.e., where level
of physical activity is measured
on an ordinal scale – sedentary,
low, medium and high – and
cholesterol concentration is
measured on a continuous scale
using mmol/L).
•  You could also use a
Spearman's correlation to
determine whether there is an
association between depression
and length of unemployment
(i.e., where depression is
measured on an ordinal scale –
none, mild, moderate and
severe – and length of
unemployment is also measured
on an ordinal scale: short-term,
medium-term and long-term
unemployed).
Basic requirements of the Spearman's
correlation
•  Assumption 1:
You have two variables that
are measured on
a continuous and/
or ordinal scale;
•  (a) two continuous variables;
•  (b) two ordinal variables; or
•  (c) one continuous and one
ordinal variable.
Basic requirements of the Spearman's
correlation
•  Assumption 2:
•  Your two variables
represent paired
observations.
Spearman's correlation: SPSS procedure
Example: time spending to the TV X
Cholesterol
Basic requirements of the Spearman's
correlation: INTERPRETING RESULTS

There was a strong positive correlation between daily time

spent watching TV and cholesterol concentration in males
aged 45 to 65 years, rs = .729.
CHI-SQUARE TEST FOR
ASSOCIATION
The chi-square test for association tests for whether two
categorical variables are associated. Another way to
phrase this is that this test determines whether two
variables are statistically independent. For this reason,
this test is also often referred to as the chi-square test of
independence. More specifically, it tests for the
association/independence between two nominal/
dichotomous variables.
CHI-SQUARE TEST FOR
ASSOCIATION: WHEN CAN BE USED?
You could use a chi-square test for association to
determine whether there is an association between brand
preference and gender in terms of sports cars (i.e., your
two nominal variables would be "car brand preferences",
which has five groups – Audi, BMW, Land Rover,
Mercedes and Porsche – and gender, which has two
groups: "males" and "females". Again, if there is an
association (positive or negative), you can also determine
the strength/magnitude of this association.
Basic requirements of a chi-square test
for association
Assumption 1: You have two categorical variables. A
categorical variable can be either a nominal variable or
an ordinal variable.
 Basic requirements of a chi-square test
for association
Assumptions 2: You should have
independence of observations,
which means that there is no
relationship between the
observations in the groups of the
categorical variables or between
the groups themselves.
For example, imagine that a teacher wants to know if
there is an association between gender and a person's
preferred learning medium. In such an example, you have
two nominal variables: "gender" (with two groups: "males"
and "females") and "preferred learning medium" (with two
groups: "online" and "books"). Independence of
observation means that no person in the female group can
also be in the male group (and vice versa). Similarly, a
person cannot prefer the online medium and books. They
can only prefer either the online medium or books.
 Basic requirements of a chi-square test
for association
Assumptions 3: all cells should have expected counts
greater than five.
 CHI-SQUARE TEST FOR
ASSOCIATION: SPSS PROCEDURE
EXAMPLE:
A researcher knows that in the general population of
active individuals, males tend to engage in competitive
sports whilst females prefer non-competitive sport/
exercise. The researcher would like to investigate whether
this is the case for males and females that are currently
enrolled in an Exercise Science degree course. They
asked 25 males and 25 females whether they
predominately participate in competitive sport or non-
competitive sport/exercise.
1.  The dichotomous variable, gender, which has
two groups with "Male" coded "1" and "Female"
coded "2";
2.  The dichotomous variable, comp, which has
two groups with "Yes" coded "1" (i.e.,
participants who predominately participate in
competitive sport) and "No" coded "2" (i.e.,
participants who predominately participate in
non-competitive sport/exercise
CHI-SQUARE TEST FOR
ASSOCIATION: SPSS PROCEDURE
CHI-SQUARE TEST FOR
ASSOCIATION: SPSS PROCEDURE
PREDICTION
o  LINEAR REGRESSION
CHI-SQUARE TEST FOR
ASSOCIATION: SPSS PROCEDURE

A chi-square test for association was conducted between

gender and preference for performing competitive sport.
All expected cell frequencies were greater than five. There
was a statistically significant association between gender
and preference for performing competitive sport, χ2(1) =
5.195, p = .023.
 LINEAR REGRESSION
A simple linear regression assesses the
linear relationship between two continuous
variables to predict the value of a
dependent variable based on the value of
an independent variable. More specifically,
it will let you: (a) determine whether the
linear regression between these two
variables is statistically significant; (b)
determine how much of the variation in the
dependent variable is explained by the
independent variable; (c) understand the
direction and magnitude of any relationship;
and (d) predict values of the dependent
variables based on different values of the
independent variable.
 Basic requirements of Linear Regression
Assumption 1: you have a continuous dependent variable;

Assumption 2: you have a continuous independent variable.

Assumption 3: There needs to be a linear relationship between the dependent and

independent variables.

Assumption 4: You should have independence of observations, which you can easily
check using the Durbin-Watson statistic

Assumption 5: There should be no significant outliers

Assumption 6: Your data needs to show homoscedasticity

Assumption 7: You need to check that the residuals (errors) of the regression line are
approximately normally distributed
 LINEAR REGRESSION: SPSS
PROCEDURE
For example, you can use simple linear regression to predict lawyers' salaries based on the
number of years they have practiced law (i.e., your dependent variable would be "salary" and
your independent variable would be "years practicing law"). You could also determine how much
of the variation in lawyers' salaries can be attributed to the number of years they have practiced
law. You could also use linear regression to predict the distance women can run in 30 minutes
based on their VO2max, which is a measure of fitness (i.e., your dependent variable would be
"distance run" and your independent variable would be "VO2max"). Again, you could determine
how much of the variation in the distance run could be attributed to the womens' VO2max scores.
We highlight three types of research design where linear regression can be used
 LINEAR REGRESSION: SPSS
PROCEDURE
For a linear regression, you will have three variables:

(1) The independent variable, time_tv, which is the average daily time spent
watching TV in minutes;
(2) The dependent variable, cholesterol, which is the cholesterol concentration
in mmol/L; and
(3) The chronological case number, caseno, which is used for easy elimination
of cases that might occur when checking assumptions. It is not used directly in
calculations for a simple linear regression analysis and thus it is not essential
for you to have this variable.
LINEAR REGRESSION: SPSS
PROCEDURE
LINEAR REGRESSION: SPSS
PROCEDURE

In this example, R2 = 0.129, which as a percentage is

12.9% (i.e., 0.129 x 100 = 12.9%). The R2 value
of 12.9% represents the percentage of variance in the
dependent variable (cholesterol) that can be explained by
the independent variable (time). Technically, it is the
percentage (or proportion) of variation accounted for by
the regression model above and beyond the mean model.
In this example, R2= 12.9%, which means that the
independent variable, time, explains 12.9% of the
variability of the dependent variable, cholesterol.
LINEAR REGRESSION: SPSS
PROCEDURE
In this example, adjusted R2 = 0.120, which as a
percentage is 12.0% (i.e., 0.120 x 100 = 12.0%). At
12.0%, adjusted R2 is less than the value for R2, which
was 12.9%, because it corrects for the positive bias in
order to provide a value that you would expect in the
population.

You could report these results as follows:

Average daily time spent watching TV accounted for

12.9% of the variation in cholesterol concentration with
adjusted R2 = 12.0%, a medium size effect according to
Cohen (1988).
LINEAR REGRESSION: SPSS
PROCEDURE

You can interpret the result as follows:

In this example, the regression model is statistically

significant, F(1, 97) = 14.40, p < .0005. It is statistically
significant because p < .05. A statistically significant result
also indicates that there is a statistically significant linear
relationship. This is reported from the table above as: F(1,
97) = 14.40, p < .0005.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GROUPS

o  INDEPENDENT-SAMPLES T-TEST
o  one-way ANOVA

 INDEPENDENT-SAMPLES T-TEST
SPSS STATISTICS
The independent-samples t-test is
used to determine if a difference
exists between the means of two
independent groups on a continuous
dependent variable. More
specifically, it will let you determine
whether the difference between
these two groups is statistically
significant.
This test is also known by a number
of different names, including the
independent t-test, independent-
measures t-test, between-subjects t-
test, unpaired t-test and Student's t-
test.
For example, you could use the
independent-samples t-test to determine
whether (mean) salaries, measured in US
dollars, differed between males and females
(i.e., your dependent variable would be
"salary" and your independent variable would
be "gender", which has two groups: "males"
and "females"). You could also use an
independent-samples t-test to determine
whether (mean) reaction time, measured in
milliseconds, differed in under 21 year olds
versus those 21 years old and over (i.e., your
dependent variable would be "reaction time"
and your independent variable would be "age
group", split into two groups: "under 21 year
olds" and "21 years old and over").
 Basic requirements of the independent-
samples t-test
Assumption 1: You have one dependent variable that is measured at the continuous
level. Examples of continuous variables include revision time (measured in hours),
intelligence (measured using IQ score), exam performance (measured from 0 to 100),
weight (measured in kg), and so forth.

Assumption 2: You have one independent variable that consists of two categorical,
independent groups (i.e., a dichotomous variable). Example independent variables that
meet this criterion include gender (two groups: "males" or "females"), employment status
(two groups: "employed" or "unemployed"), transport type (two groups: "bus" or "car"),
smoker (two groups: "yes" or "no"), trial (two groups: "intervention" or "control"), and so
forth.
 Basic requirements of the independent-
samples t-test
Assumption 3: You should have independence of observations, which means that there is no
relationship between the observations in each group of the independent variable or between the
groups themselves.

FOR EXAMPLE: if you split a group of individuals into two groups based on their gender (i.e., a male
group and a female group), no one in the female group can be in the male group and vice versa. As
another example, you might randomly assign participants to either a control trial or an intervention
trial. Again, no participant can be in both the control group and the intervention group.
 Basic requirements of the independent-
samples t-test
Assumption 3: You should have independence of observations, which means that there is no
relationship between the observations in each group of the independent variable or between the
groups themselves.

FOR EXAMPLE: if you split a group of individuals into two groups based on their gender (i.e., a male
group and a female group), no one in the female group can be in the male group and vice versa. As
another example, you might randomly assign participants to either a control trial or an intervention
trial. Again, no participant can be in both the control group and the intervention group.
 Basic requirements of the independent-
samples t-test
Assumption 4: there should be no significant outliers in the two groups of your independent variable in
terms of the dependent variable;

Assump/on 5: your dependent variable should be approximately normally distributed for each group of
the independent variable;

Assump/on 6: you have homogeneity of variances (i.e., the variance of the dependent variable is equal
in each group of your independent variable).
INDEPENDENT-SAMPLES T-TEST: SPSS
PROCEDURE
An Advertising Agency is commissioned to create a TV advert to promote a new product. Since the
product is designed for men and women, the TV advert has to appeal to men and women equally.
Before the company that commissioned the Advertising Agency spends $250,000 across a number
of TV networks, it wants to make sure that the TV advert created by the Advertising Agency
appeals equally to men and women. More specifically, the company wants to know whether the
way that men and women engage with the TV advert is the same. To achieve this, the TV advert is
shown to 20 men and 20 women, who are then asked to fill in a questionnaire that measures their
engagement with the advertisement. The questionnaire provides an overall engagement score.
INDEPENDENT-SAMPLES T-TEST: SPSS
PROCEDURE
Setting up your data
For an independent-samples t-test, you will have two
variables. In this example, these are:

The dependent variable, engagement, which is the

overall engagement score from the questionnaire;
and

The independent variable, gender, which has two

groups: "Male" and "Female".
INDEPENDENT-SAMPLES T-TEST: SPSS
PROCEDURE

INDEPENDENT-SAMPLES T-TEST: SPSS
PROCEDURE

INDEPENDENT-SAMPLES T-TEST: SPSS
PROCEDURE
Explanation 1: By default, SPSS Statistics uses 95%
confidence intervals (labelled as the Confidence Interval
Percentage in SPSS Statistics). This equates to declaring
statistical significance at the p < .05 level. If you wish to
change this you can enter any value from 1 to 99. For
example, a 99% confidence interval would equate to
declaring statistical significance at the p < .01 level.
INDEPENDENT-SAMPLES T-TEST: SPSS
PROCEDURE

Data are mean ± standard deviation, unless otherwise

stated. There were 20 male and 20 female participants.
The advertisement was more engaging to male viewers
(5.56 ± 0.29) than female viewers (5.30 ± 0.39).
INDEPENDENT-SAMPLES T-TEST: SPSS
PROCEDURE

There was a statistically significant difference in mean

engagement score between males and females, t(38) =
2.365, p = .023.
INDEPENDENT-SAMPLES T-TEST: SPSS
PROCEDURE

You can interpret the result as follows:

An independent-samples t-test was run to determine if

there were differences in engagement to an advertisement
between males and females. The advertisement was more
engaging to male viewers (M = 5.56, SD = 0.35) than
female viewers (M = 5.30, SD = 0.35), a statistically
significant difference, M = 0.26, 95% CI [0.04, 0.48], t(38)
= 2.365, p = .023.
 ONE-WAY ANOVA
SPSS STATISTICS
If you want to determine
whether there are any
statistically significant
d i ff e r e n c e s b e t w e e n t h e
means of two or more
independent groups, you can
use a one-way analysis of
variance (ANOVA).
For example, you could use a
one-way ANOVA to determine
whether exam performance
differed based on test anxiety
levels amongst students (i.e.,
your dependent variable would be
"exam performance", measured
from 0-100, and your independent
variable would be "test anxiety
level", which has three groups:
"low-stressed students",
"moderately-stressed students"
and "highly-stressed students").
Basic requirements of the one-way
ANOVA
Assumption 1: You have one dependent variable that is measured at the continuous level.
Examples of continuous variables include height (measured in metres and centimetres),
temperature (measured in °C), salary (measured in US dollars), revision time (measured in hours),
intelligence (measured using IQ score) etc.

Assumption 2: You have one independent variable that consists of two or more categorical,
independent groups. Typically, a one-way ANOVA is used when you have three or more categorical,
independent groups, but it can be used for just two groups (although an independent-samples t-test
is more commonly used for two groups). Example independent variables that meet this criterion
include ethnicity (e.g., three groups: Caucasian, African American and Hispanic), physical activity
level (e.g., four groups: sedentary, low, moderate and high), profession (e.g., five groups: surgeon,
doctor, nurse, dentist, therapist), and so forth.
 Basic requirements of the one-way
ANOVA
Assumption 3: You should have independence of observations, which means that there is no
relationship between the observations in each group of the independent variable or between the groups
themselves.

For example, if you split a group of individuals into four groups based on their physical activity level (e.g.,
a "sedentary" group, "low" group, "moderate" group and "high" group), no one in the sedentary group can
also be in the high group, no one in the moderate group can also be in the high group, and so forth. As
another example, you might randomly assign participants to either a control trial or one of two
interventions. Again, no participant can be in more than one group (e.g., a participant in the the control
group cannot be in either of the intervention groups).
 Basic requirements of the one-way
ANOVA
Assumption 4: there should be no significant outliers in the groups of your independent
variable in terms of the dependent variable;

Assumption 5: your dependent variable should be approximately normally distributed for

each group of the independent variable;

Assumption 6: you should have homogeneity of variances (i.e., the variance of the
dependent variable is equal in each group of the independent variable).
 ONE-WAY ANOVA: SPSS PROCEDURE
A researcher believes that individuals that are more physically active are better able to cope with stress
in the workplace. To test this theory, the researcher recruited 31 subjects and measured how many
minutes of physical activity they performed per week and their ability to cope with workplace stress.
The subjects were categorized into four groups based on the number of minutes of physical activity
they performed: namely, "sedentary", "low", "moderate" and "high" physical activity groups.

These groups (levels of physical activity) formed an independent variable called group. The ability to
cope with workplace stress was assessed as the average score of a series of Likert items on a
questionnaire, which allowed an overall "coping with workplace stress" score to be calculated; higher
scores indicating a greater ability to cope with workplace-related stress. This dependent variable was
called coping_stress and "ability to cope with workplace-related stress" abbreviated as "CWWS" score.
The researcher would like to know if CWWS score is dependent on physical activity level.
 ONE-WAY ANOVA: SPSS PROCEDURE
For a one-way ANOVA, you will have two variables. In this example,
these are:

1) The dependent variable, coping_stress, which is the "ability to

cope with workplace-related stress" (abbreviated as "CWWS" score);
and
2) The independent variable, group, which has four ordered
categories: "Sedentary", "Low", "Moderate", and "High" (N.B., the
categories do not have to be ordered in a one-way ANOVA).
ONE-WAY ANOVA: SPSS PROCEDURE
ONE-WAY ANOVA: SPSS PROCEDURE
ONE-WAY ANOVA: SPSS PROCEDURE

SPSS Statistics will have generated a Descriptives table containing some useful descriptive statistics
for each group of the independent variable – the "Sedentary", "Low", "Moderate" and "High" groups –
which will help you get a "feel" for your data and will be used when you report your results. You can
make an initial interpretation of your data using the Descriptives table:
ONE-WAY ANOVA: SPSS PROCEDURE

The ability to cope with workplace-related stress

(CWWS score) was statistically significantly
different for different levels of physical activity
group, F(3, 27) = 8.316, p < .001.
ONE-WAY ANOVA: SPSS PROCEDURE
ONE-WAY ANOVA: SPSS PROCEDURE
ONE-WAY ANOVA: SPSS PROCEDURE
How can I increase Power?
•  1) Increase Alpha level
•  Changing alpha from 0.05 to 0.10 will increase your power (better chance of
finding significant results)
•  Downsides to increasing your alpha level?
•  This will increase the chance of Type I error!

•  This is rarely acceptable in practice

•  Only really an option when working in a new area:
•  Researchers are unsure of how to measure a new variable
•  Researchers are unaware of confounders to control for
How can I increase Power?
•  2) Increase N
•  Sample size is directly used when calculating p-values

•  Including more subjects will increase your chance of finding statistically significant
results

•  Downsides to increasing sample size?

•  More subjects means more time/money

•  More subjects is ALWAYS a better option if possible

 How can I increase Power?
•  3) Use fewer groups/variables (simpler designs)
•  Related to sample size but different
•  ‘Use fewer groups’ NOT ‘Use less subjects’
•  ↑ groups negatively effects your degrees of freedom
•  Remember, df is calculated with # groups and # subjects
•  Lots of variables, groups and interactions make it more difficult to find statistically
significant differences
•  The purpose of the Family-wise error rate is to make it harder to find significant results!
•  Downsides to fewer groups/variables?
•  Sometimes you NEED to make several comparisons and test for interactions - unavoidable
 How can I increase Power?
•  4) Measure variables more accurately
•  If variables are poorly measured (sloppy work, broken equipment, outdated equipment,
etc…) this increases measurement error
•  More measurement error decreases confidence in the result
•  For example, perhaps I underestimated %BF in my ‘low exercise’ group? This could
lead to Type II Error.
•  More of an internal validity problem than statistical problem
•  Downsides to measuring more accurately?
•  None – if you can afford the best tools
 How can I increase Power?
•  5) Decrease subject variability
•  Subjects will have various characteristics that may also be correlated with your
variables
•  SES, sex, race/ethnicity, age, etc…
•  These variables can confound your results, making it harder to find statistically significant results
•  When planning your sample (to enhance power), select subjects that are very similar to each other
•  This is a reason why repeated measures tests and paired samples are more likely to have statistically
significant results
•  Downside to decreasing subject variability?
•  Will decrease your external validity – generalizability
•  If you only test women, your results do not apply to men
 How can I increase Power?
•  6) Increase magnitude of the mean difference
•  If your groups are not different enough, make them more different!
•  For example, instead of measuring just high and low exercisers, perhaps I compare
marathon runners vs completely sedentary people?
•  Compare a ‘very’ high exercise to a ‘very’ low exercise group
•  Sampling at the extremes, getting rid of the middle group
•  Downsides to using the extremes?
•  Similar to decreasing subject variability, this will decrease your external validity
To sum up…When to use specific statistical tests…

# of IV
# of DV (format) Examining… Test/Notes
(format)
1 1
Association Pearson Correlation (r)
(continuous) (continuous)
1 1 Simple Linear Regression
Prediction
(continuous) (continuous) (m + b)
1 Multiple Linear Regression
Multiple Prediction
(continuous) (m + b)
 # of IV
# of DV (format) Examining… Test/Notes
(format)
When one group is a
1 (grouping, 2 1 Group
‘known’ population = One-
levels) (continuous) differences
Sample t-test

When both groups are

1 (grouping, 2 1 Group
independent = Independent
levels) (continuous) differences
Samples t-test

When both groups are

1 (grouping, 2 1 Group
dependent = Paired Samples
levels) (continuous) differences
t-test

One-Way ANOVA, with Post-

1 (grouping, ∞ 1 Group
Hoc (F ratio)
levels) (continuous) differences
 # of IV # of DV
Examining… Test/Notes
(format) (format)
Group Factorial ANOVA with Post-
∞ (grouping, ∞ 1
Differences and Hoc and/or Estimated
levels) (continuous)
interactions Marginal Means (F ratio)

Group Differences, ANCOVA with Estimated

∞ (grouping, ∞ 1
interactions, controlling Marginal Means (F ratio)
levels) (continuous)
for confounders Analysis of Co-Variance

Repeated Measures ANOVA

Group Differences,
with Estimated Marginal
∞ (grouping, ∞ 1 interactions, controlling
Means
levels) (continuous) for confounders in a
(F ratio)
related sample
(e.g., longitudinal)