How to use SPSS/ANOVA

ANOVA stands for Analysis of Variance. If you are familiar with how to calculate variance, then this will seem somewhat familiar to you. The goal is to figure out whether one variable is significant based on another variable. Usually, these would be the dependent and independent variable respectively. Keep in mind that this test statistic uses both the f-test and t-test and will give the same results as an independent samples t-test. To perform this command in SPSS, click Analyze>Compare Means> One-Way Anova. You'll put one variable in the dependent list and your grouping variable in the factor section. Then you will define the two groups on the variable you would like to compare. Sometimes it is useful to think about trying to compare two extremes and seeing if these two are statistically different from one another. Let's say the dependent variable is income and might be related based on a factor called workethic. Theoretically, the harder a person works or doesn't work, the more or less money they will make. Using this theory, we might want to measure the two extremes of workethic and compare "slackers" to "entrepreneurs". We would define the groups in workethic as those with a low workethic (a value of 1...so define group 1 as 1) and those with a high workethic (a value of 5...so define group 2 as 5) and click okay.