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Statistics vocabulary · Hypothesis Testing

ANOVA

Meaning in statistics, with examples

/əˈnoʊvə/abbreviationCore term

In statistics, ANOVA means: Short for analysis of variance: a family of tests that compare the means of three or more groups at once by comparing variation between the groups with variation within them.

In Turkish: varyans analizi, ANOVA

How it is used

Said as one word, 'a-NO-va'. Types include one-way, two-way and repeated-measures ANOVA. Results are reported with an F statistic, e.g. 'F(2, 87) = 5.36, p = .006'. A significant ANOVA only says that at least one mean differs; post hoc tests show which.

Example sentences

  1. A one-way ANOVA showed a significant effect of teaching method on scores, F(2, 87) = 5.36, p = .006.

  2. Why not run three t-tests instead of an ANOVA? Because that inflates the Type I error rate.

Common collocations

  • one-way ANOVA
  • two-way ANOVA
  • repeated-measures ANOVA
  • run an ANOVA
  • ANOVA table
  • t-testA hypothesis test that compares means: one group's mean with a fixed value, the means of two independent groups, or two measurements of the same people.
  • post hoc testA follow-up test run after a significant overall result, such as an ANOVA, to find out exactly which groups differ from each other.
  • varianceThe average of the squared distances between each value and the mean; it measures spread, and its square root is the standard deviation.
  • degrees of freedomThe number of values in a calculation that are free to vary once certain constraints are fixed; it sets the exact shape of distributions such as t, chi-square and F.
  • assumptionA condition that must hold, at least approximately, for a statistical test or model to give valid results, such as normality, equal variances or independent observations.

More terms: Hypothesis Testing

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