The Significance Test in ANOVA (2 of 2)
Next section: Partitioning the sums of squares
After an F is computed, the probability value can be computed from an
F
table. To use this table, you need to know the two degrees of freedom
parameters: dfn and dfd:
dfn = a-1
dfd = N-a
where a is the number of groups and N is the total number of subjects
in all groups. The parameter dfd is often called degrees of freedom
error or dfe for short.
For the example
data, dfn = 3-1 = 2 dfd = 12-3 = 9, MSB =
4, and MSE = 1.111.
Therefore,
F = MSB/MSE = 4/1.111 = 3.6.
An
F table can be used to compute that
the probability value for an F of 3.6 with 2 and 9 df is 0.071.
Therefore the null hypothesis cannot be rejected at the 0.05
level.
Next section: Partitioning the sums of squares