ABSTRACT
A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) can be used to determine if two group means are significantly different. Instead of yielding a t-statistic, an ANOVA yields an F-statistic. For a given set of data, with two groups, t and F will yield the same probability (p) that the null hypothesis is true. As with the t-test, when an ANOVA yields a value of p <.05, the null hypothesis is typically rejected. The logic of the F-statistic parallels the logic of the t-statistic. One-way ANOVA is often used when researchers want to be assured that group means are similar, like at the outset of a clinical trial. A one-way ANOVA is also known as a univariate ANOVA. One drawback to the one-way ANOVA with more than two groups, is that a significant result only tells that one of the group means is different from at least one of the other group means.
