ANOVA and the Analysis of Variance for Multiple Groups

Last modified: February 05, 2025

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ANOVA and the Analysis of Variance for Multiple Groups

Scenario: Peer Assessment and Student Learning

Does peer assessment enhance student learning?

A study investigated whether different instructional methods lead to varying learning outcomes, measured by final exam scores.
Students were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups to analyze performance.
One group completed homework assignments independently, without any peer assessment.
Another group completed homework and participated in peer assessment, where students evaluated each other’s work.
A third group studied independently without doing homework.
Final exam scores for students in each group were collected for comparison.
The final exam scores were summarized and visualized using boxplots.
The main objective of the study was to determine if different instructional methods significantly affected learning outcomes, as reflected in final exam results.

Formulating the Hypotheses

To statistically assess the impact of the different treatments, we set up the following hypotheses:

I. Null Hypothesis ( $H_{0}$ ): All group means are equal. That is, there is no significant difference in final exam scores between the three treatment groups.

$H_{0} : μ_{1} = μ_{2} = μ_{3}$

II. Alternative Hypothesis ( $H_{A}$ ): At least one group mean is different, indicating that the treatments have different effects on student learning.

$H_{A} : At least one μ_{j} differs$

Comparing Two Groups: The Two-Sample t-Test

When comparing only two groups, the two-sample t-test is appropriate. It tests whether there is a significant difference between the means of two independent groups.

I. t-Test Formula

The t-statistic is calculated as:

$t = \frac{y_{1} - y_{2}}{S E_{y_{1} - y_{2}}}$

where:

${\bar{y}}_{1}, {\bar{y}}_{2}$ : Sample means of groups 1 and 2.
$S E_{{\bar{y}}_{1} - {\bar{y}}_{2}}$ : Standard error of the difference between the two sample means.

II. Standard Error Calculation

Assuming equal variances:

$S E_{{\bar{y}}_{1} - {\bar{y}}_{2}} = \sqrt{\frac{s^{2}}{n_{1}} + \frac{s^{2}}{n_{2}}}$

where:

$s^{2}$ : Pooled sample variance.
$n_{1}, n_{2}$ : Sample sizes of groups 1 and 2.

III. Limitations

The t-test is limited to comparing two groups.
When dealing with more than two groups, the risk of Type I error increases with multiple t-tests.

ANOVA: Analysis of Variance for Multiple Groups

To compare three or more groups, we use Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). ANOVA tests for significant differences among group means by analyzing variances.

Key Concepts:

Between-groups variance refers to the variability caused by the interaction between different treatment groups.
Within-groups variance refers to the variability within each group that arises from individual differences.

ANOVA Hypotheses:

The null hypothesis (H₀) in ANOVA states that all group means are equal.
The alternative hypothesis (Hₐ) suggests that not all group means are equal.

The ANOVA Methodology

ANOVA partitions the total variability in the data into components attributable to various sources.

Total Sum of Squares (SSTotal)

The Total Sum of Squares measures the total variability in the data:

$S S T o t a l = \sum_{i = 1}^{N} (y_{i} - \bar{y})^{2}$

where:

$y_{i}$ : Individual observations.
$\bar{y}$ : Overall mean of all observations.
$N$ : Total number of observations.

1. Treatment Variance (Between-Groups Variability)

Sum of Squares for Treatments (SST) measures the variability between the group means and the overall mean:

$S S T = \sum_{j = 1}^{k} n_{j} ({\bar{y}}_{j} - \bar{y})^{2}$

where:

$n_{j}$ : Sample size of group $j$ .
${\bar{y}}_{j}$ : Mean of group $j$ .
$k$ : Number of groups.

Treatment Mean Square (MST) is the average treatment variability:

$M S T = \frac{S S T}{k - 1}$

Degrees of freedom for treatments: $d f_{Treatment} = k - 1$ .

2. Error Variance (Within-Groups Variability)

Sum of Squares for Error (SSE) measures the variability within the groups:

$S S E = \sum_{j = 1}^{k} \sum_{i = 1}^{n_{j}} (y_{i j} - {\bar{y}}_{j})^{2}$

where:

$y_{i j}$ : Individual observation in group $j$ .
${\bar{y}}_{j}$ : Mean of group $j$ .

Error Mean Square (MSE) is the average within-group variability:

$M S E = \frac{S S E}{N - k}$

where:

Degrees of freedom for error: $d f_{Error} = N - k$ .

3. Calculating the F-Statistic

The F-statistic compares the between-groups variance to the within-groups variance:

$F = \frac{M S T}{M S E}$

where:

Under $H_{0}$ , $M S T$ and $M S E$ estimate the same variance, so $F \approx 1$ .
A large $F$ value suggests that between-group variability is greater than within-group variability, indicating significant differences among group means.

F-Distribution

The F-statistic follows an F-distribution with $d f_{1} = k - 1$ (numerator degrees of freedom) and $d f_{2} = N - k$ (denominator degrees of freedom).
The p-value is determined based on the F-distribution.

Example: Peer Assessment Data

Data Summary

Suppose we have the following data:

The group sizes are defined as: Homework Only ( $n_{1}$ ), Homework with Peer Assessment ( $n_{2}$ ), and Study Without Homework ( $n_{3}$ ).
The group means ( ${\bar{y}}_{j}$ ) and variances ( $s_{j}^{2}$ ) are calculated based on the collected data.
The total number of observations is represented as $N = n_{1} + n_{2} + n_{3}$ .

ANOVA Table Construction

ANOVA Table summarizes the calculations:

Source	df	Sum of Squares (SS)	Mean Square (MS)	F
Treatment	$k - 1$	SST	$M S T = \frac{S S T}{k - 1}$	$F = \frac{M S T}{M S E}$
Error	$N - k$	SSE	$M S E = \frac{S S E}{N - k}$
Total	$N - 1$	SSTotal

Given Example:

Source	df	Sum of Squares	Mean Square	F
Treatment	2	98.4	49.2	2.57
Error	38	723.8	19.05
Total	40	822.2

Calculations

SSTotal:

$S S T o t a l = S S T + S S E = 98.4 + 723.8 = 822.2$

Degrees of Freedom:

$d f_{Treatment} = k - 1 = 3 - 1 = 2$
$d f_{Error} = N - k = 41 - 3 = 38$
$d f_{Total} = N - 1 = 41 - 1 = 40$

Mean Squares:

$M S T = \frac{S S T}{d f_{Treatment}} = \frac{98.4}{2} = 49.2$
$M S E = \frac{S S E}{d f_{Error}} = \frac{723.8}{38} \approx 19.05$

F-Statistic:

$F = \frac{M S T}{M S E} = \frac{49.2}{19.05} \approx 2.58$

P-Value:

Using F-distribution tables or software, with $d f_{1} = 2$ and $d f_{2} = 38$ , we find:
p-value ≈ 0.087

Decision

At a significance level of $α = 0.05$ , since $p = 0.087 > 0.05$ , we fail to reject $H_{0}$ .
There is not enough evidence to conclude that the treatments have different effects on student learning.

Interpretation of ANOVA Results

Understanding the F-Statistic

A small F-value (around 1) suggests that the variability between group means is similar to the variability within groups, implying no significant difference among group means.
A large F-value indicates that the variability between group means is greater than the variability within groups, suggesting significant differences among group means.

P-Value Interpretation

If the p-value is less than $α$ , we reject $H_{0}$ and conclude that at least one group mean is different.
If the p-value is greater than or equal to $α$ , we fail to reject $H_{0}$ and cannot conclude that there are differences among group means.

Conclusion for the Example

With a p-value of 0.087, there is not sufficient evidence at the 5% significance level to claim that peer assessment improves student learning over other methods.
However, the p-value is close to 0.05, suggesting a potential trend that might reach significance with a larger sample size.

The One-Way ANOVA Model

Statistical Model

The one-way ANOVA model expresses each observation as:

$y_{i j} = μ_{j} + ϵ_{i j}$

where:

$y_{i j}$ : Observation $i$ in group $j$ .
$μ_{j}$ : Mean of group $j$ .
$ϵ_{i j}$ : Random error term, assumed to be independently and identically distributed (i.i.d.) with:
Mean $E [ϵ_{i j}] = 0$
Variance $V a r (ϵ_{i j}) = σ^{2}$

Alternative Representation

We can express the model in terms of the overall mean $μ$ and group effects $τ_{j}$ :

$y_{i j} = μ + τ_{j} + ϵ_{i j}$

where:

$μ$ : Overall mean.
$τ_{j} = μ_{j} - μ$ : Effect of treatment $j$ .

Assumptions of the Model

Normality: The residuals $ϵ_{i j}$ are normally distributed.
Independence: Observations are independent.
Homogeneity of Variance: The variances within each group are equal ( $σ^{2}$ is constant across groups).

Assumptions of the F-Test

For the results of the ANOVA F-test to be valid, certain assumptions must be met:

1. Equal Variances (Homogeneity of Variance)

The assumption is that the variances within each group are equal.
This can be checked using boxplots for visual inspection of similar spread among groups.
Levene's Test can be used as a statistical method to test for equal variances.
A rule of thumb states that if the largest sample standard deviation is no more than twice the smallest, the assumption is reasonable.

2. Independence of Observations

The assumption is that observations are independent both within and across groups.
This is ensured by random assignment in experimental studies or random sampling in observational studies.

3. Normality of Residuals

The assumption is that the residuals ( $ϵ_{i j}$ ) are normally distributed.
This can be checked by using normal probability plots to assess the normality of residuals.
The Shapiro-Wilk Test is a formal statistical test for normality.

Post-ANOVA Testing

If the ANOVA F-test leads us to reject $H_{0}$ , indicating that not all group means are equal, we may want to identify which groups differ.

Performing multiple t-tests increases the risk of Type I error (false positives). To control for this, we use:

1. Bonferroni Correction

Adjusts the significance level:

$α^{'} = \frac{α}{Number of Comparisons}$

Example: For 3 groups, there are $\frac{3 \times 2}{2} = 3$ comparisons.

2. Tukey's Honest Significant Difference (HSD) Test

Controls the family-wise error rate.
Computes confidence intervals for all pairwise differences.

Steps for Pairwise Comparisons

I. Calculate the Standard Error for Differences:

$S E_{{\bar{y}}_{i} - {\bar{y}}_{j}} = \sqrt{M S E (\frac{1}{n_{i}} + \frac{1}{n_{j}})}$

II. Compute the t-Statistic for Each Pair:

$t = \frac{y_{i} - y_{j}}{S E_{y_{i} - y_{j}}}$

III. Determine the Adjusted p-Values:

Use the adjusted significance level or critical values from Tukey's distribution.

Practical Application Steps

1. Conduct ANOVA

Compute SST, SSE, MST, MSE, and F-statistic.
Determine the p-value using the F-distribution.
Decide whether to reject $H_{0}$ based on the p-value.

2. Check Assumptions

To check for equal variances, use boxplots or formal statistical tests.
Normality is assessed by examining the residuals.
Ensure that the study design supports independence of observations.

3. Interpret Results

If $H_{0}$ is not rejected, conclude that there is no significant difference among group means.
If $H_{0}$ is rejected, proceed to post-hoc tests to identify specific group differences.