How to Conduct a One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) in R

Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is a statistical technique commonly used to examine the differences between group means in a sample. One-way ANOVA is particularly useful when you want to compare more than two groups, and you have one independent variable with more than two levels (or groups). For example, you might want to compare the test scores of students from three different classes, the sales performance of four different regions, or the effects of five different diets on weight loss.

In this article, we will cover the entire process of conducting a one-way ANOVA in R.

Table of Contents

1. Understanding One-Way ANOVA
2. Preparing the Data
3. Running One-Way ANOVA in R
4. Checking Assumptions
5. Post-hoc Analysis
6. Interpreting Results
7. Reporting Findings
8. Conclusion

1. Understanding One-Way ANOVA

One-way ANOVA assesses whether the means of a numerical dependent variable differ significantly across the levels of one categorical independent variable. It is essential to understand the null and alternative hypotheses before running the test.

• Null Hypothesis: The group means are equal.
• Alternative Hypothesis: At least one group mean is different from the others.

2. Preparing the Data

Your data should be organized in a table where one column represents the dependent variable (e.g., test scores), and another column represents the independent variable or factor (e.g., classes). The data can be in a CSV, Excel, or native R data frame.

Here is an example data frame:

# Sample Data
data <- data.frame(
  scores = c(90, 85, 88, 92, 70, 75, 80, 77, 65, 60, 55, 62),
  classes = c("A", "A", "A", "A", "B", "B", "B", "B", "C", "C", "C", "C")
)

3. Running One-Way ANOVA in R

To perform a one-way ANOVA, you can use the aov() function in R. Here is the basic syntax:

result <- aov(DependentVariable ~ IndependentVariable, data=YourDataFrame)

For our example:

result <- aov(scores ~ classes, data=data)

4. Checking Assumptions

Before you can rely on your ANOVA results, you need to check the following assumptions:

4.1 Normality

Check the normality assumption using a Shapiro-Wilk test for each group or a QQ plot.

shapiro.test(data$scores[data$classes == "A"])
# Repeat for each group

4.2 Homogeneity of Variance

Use Levene’s test to check for the homogeneity of variances.

install.packages("car")
library(car)
leveneTest(scores ~ classes, data=data)

4.3 Independence

This assumption is often checked through the study design. Make sure your samples are independent.

5. Post-hoc Analysis

If your ANOVA indicates significant differences, you’ll often want to know which specific groups are different. Use a post-hoc test like Tukey’s HSD for this.

posthoc <- TukeyHSD(result)
print(posthoc)

6. Interpreting Results

• Summary of the ANOVA table:

summary(result)

The p-value will help you determine the significance of your results.

7. Reporting Findings

When reporting the results, state the F-value, degrees of freedom, and the p-value.

Example: “A one-way ANOVA was conducted to compare scores among three different classes. There was a significant effect of class type on scores, F(2, 9) = xx.xx, p < .05.”

8. Conclusion

Conducting a one-way ANOVA in R involves multiple steps. This guide aims to provide a comprehensive approach to conducting this analysis. Now that you are familiar with the entire process, you can confidently use one-way ANOVA in R for your own data analyses.