ANOVA, which stands for Analysis of Variance, is a statistical test used to analyze the

difference between the means of more than two groups. A one-way ANOVA uses one
independent variable, while a two-way ANOVA uses two independent variables.
When to use a one-way ANOVA
Use a one-way ANOVA when you have collected data about one categorical independent
variable and one quantitative dependent variable. The independent variable should have at
least three levels (i.e. at least three different groups or categories).
ANOVA tells you if the dependent variable changes according to the level of the independent
variable. For example:
 Your independent variable is social media use, and you assign groups to low, medium,
and high levels of social media use to find out if there is a difference in hours of sleep
per night.
 Your independent variable is brand of soda, and you collect data
on Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, and Fanta to find out if there is a difference in the price per
100ml.
 You independent variable is type of fertilizer, and you treat crop fields with
mixtures 1, 2 and 3 to find out if there is a difference in crop yield.
The null hypothesis (H0) of ANOVA is that there is no difference among group means. The
alternative hypothesis (Ha) is that at least one group differs significantly from the overall
mean of the dependent variable.
If you only want to compare two groups, use a t test instead.
How does an ANOVA test work?
ANOVA determines whether the groups created by the levels of the independent variable are
statistically different by calculating whether the means of the treatment levels are different
from the overall mean of the dependent variable.
If any of the group means is significantly different from the overall mean, then the null
hypothesis is rejected.
ANOVA uses the F test for statistical significance. This allows for comparison of multiple
means at once, because the error is calculated for the whole set of comparisons rather than for
each individual two-way comparison (which would happen with a t test).
The F test compares the variance in each group mean from the overall group variance. If the
variance within groups is smaller than the variance between groups, the F test will find a
higher F value, and therefore a higher likelihood that the difference observed is real and not
due to chance.
The ANOVA Test
Watch the video for an introduction to ANOVA.
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.
What Does “One-Way” or “Two-Way Mean?
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). For example: brand of cereal,
 Two-way has two independent variables (it can have multiple levels). For
example: brand of cereal, calories.
What are “Groups” or “Levels”?
Groups or levels are different groups within the same independent variable. In the above
example, your levels for “brand of cereal” might be Lucky Charms, Raisin Bran, Cornflakes
— a total of three levels. Your levels for “Calories” might be: sweetened, unsweetened — a
total of two levels.
Let’s say you are studying if an alcoholic support group and individual counseling combined
is the most effective treatment for lowering alcohol consumption. You might split the study
participants into three groups or levels:
 Medication only,
 Medication and counseling,
 Counseling only.
Your dependent variable would be the number of alcoholic beverages consumed per day.
If your groups or levels have a hierarchical structure (each level has unique subgroups), then
use a nested ANOVA for the analysis.
What Does “Replication” Mean?
It’s whether you are replicating (i.e. duplicating) your test(s) with multiple groups. With a
two way ANOVA with replication , you have two groups and individuals within that group
are doing more than one thing (i.e. two groups of students from two colleges taking two
tests). If you only have one group taking two tests, you would use without replication.
Types of Tests.
There are two main types: one-way and two-way. Two-way tests can be with or without
replication.
 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.
One Way ANOVA

A one way ANOVA is used to compare two means from two independent (unrelated) groups
using the F-distribution. The null hypothesis for the test is that the two means are equal.
Therefore, a significant result means that the two means are unequal.

Examples of 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.

Limitations of the One Way ANOVA

A one way ANOVA will tell you that at least two groups were different from each other.
But it won’t tell you which groups were different. If your test returns a significant f-
statistic, you may need to run an ad hoc test (like the Least Significant Difference test) to tell
you exactly which groups had a difference in means.