Chapter 13 Video Transcript

Many statistical applications in Psychology, Social Sciences, Business Administration and the Natural Sciences involve several groups. For example, an environmentalist is interested in knowing if the average amount of pollution varies in several bodies of water. A sociologist is interested in knowing if the amount of income a person earns varies according to his or her upbringing. A consumer looking for a new car might compare average gas mileage of several models.

For hypothesis tests involving more than two averages, statisticians have developed a method called Analysis of Variance, abbreviated ANOVA. In this chapter you will study the simplest form of ANOVA, called Single Factor or one-way ANOVA. You will also study the F-distribution used for ANOVA and the Test of Two Variances. This is just a very brief overview of ANOVA. You will study this topic in much greater detail in future statistics courses.