Statistics Tip of the Week: What ANOVA does and does not do

The concept of ANOVA can be confusing in several aspects. To start with, its name is an acronym for "ANalysis Of VAriance", but it is not used for analyzing Variances. (F and Chi-square tests are used for that.) ANOVA is used for analyzing Means. The internal calculations that it uses to do so involve analyzing Variances -- hence the name.

• The 1st column in the following table describes what ANOVA does do.
• The 2nd column says what ANOVA does not do.
• The 3rd column tells what to use if we want do what's in the 2nd column.

For more details on ANOVA, I have a 6-video playlist on YouTube.