Comparing Treatment Means

If the ANOVA shows that the differences

between treatments are NOT significant
 Then we accept the null hypothesis Ho:
 A=B=C=D
 There are NO differences between the groups (treatments)
 There is NO NEED to compare the means

 Example in Excel
If the ANOVA shows that the differences
between treatments are significant
 We reject Ho
 There are at least two treatments that are significantly different
 BUT – which ones???
 We need to compare the means
Comparison between treatment means:

 If there are four treatments

 A vs B
 A vs C
 A vs D
 B vs C
 B vs D
 C vs D
 There are 6 possible comparisons one can make
 These are called MULTIPLE COMPARISONS
 We did not plan these comparisons but we did it after we found the differences were significant.
Thus this called POST-HOC comparisons
 Least Significant Difference (LSD)
 This is the simplest method.
 We find a value called LSD
 If two means differ by a value >LSD then the means are significantly different. If two
means differ by a value<LSD the means are NOT significantly different
 Arrange the means by the value highest to lowest:

C 65.0 We can denote the

23.8 If LSD = 6.6, means:
D 41.2 Then C>D, B, A C 65.0a
2.8
B 38.4 D=B, D>A D 41.2b
21.8
19.0
B>A B 38.4b
A 19.4 A 19.4c

Means with similar letters are not

significantly different
 How to calculate the LSD?

Where:
t = critical value from the t-distribution table
MSw = mean square within, obtained from the results of your
ANOVA test
n = number of scores used to calculate the means
 Step 1: Find the t-critical value. The t-critical value for α=0.05, dfw = 36 is 2.028).
Make sure you are using the Within groups DF from your results!

Step 2: Insert the given values, the MSE from your results (I used 26.65 from Within groups on the
above table) the t-distribution value from Step 2 into the least significant difference formula:
LSD = 2.028 √ (26.65 * (2/10)) = 4.68.
Put this number aside for a moment,
Step 3: Calculate ybar1-ybar2 from the results. For this example, we get -8.7.

Step 4: Compare Step 2 and Step 3. If |ybar1-ybar2| ≥ LSD1,2 then you can reject the
null hypothesis that the means are the same (H0:μ1 = μ2). Our value of 8.7 is larger than
4.68 so we can reject the null hypothesis.
Using SAS for ANOVA and Means
Comparisons
DATA COMPARE;
INPUT GROUP$ VALUE;
DATALINES;
A 13
A 23
A 18
A 19
A 24
B 33
B 36
B 41
B 34
B 48
C 67
C 64
C 59
D 39
D 41
D 42
;
PROC ANOVA;
CLASS GROUP;
MODEL VALUE=GROUP;
MEANS GROUP/LSD;
RUN;
 The ANOVA Procedure

Dependent Variable: VALUE

Source DF Sum of Mean Square F Value Pr > F

Squares

Model 3 5246.800000 1748.933333 72.27 <.0001

Error 16 387.200000 24.200000    

Corrected 19 5634.000000      
Total

R-Square Coeff Var Root MSE VALUE Mean

0.931274 11.99841 4.919350 41.00000

Source DF Anova SS Mean Square F Value Pr > F

GROUP 3 5246.800000 1748.933333 72.27 <.0001
 The ANOVA Procedure
t Tests (LSD) for VALUE
Alpha 0.05
Error Degrees of Freedom 16
Error Mean Square 24.2
Critical Value of t 2.11991
Least Significant Difference 6.5956

Means with the same letter

are not significantly different.
t Grouping Mean N GROUP
a 65.000 5 C
       
b 41.200 5 D
     
b 38.400 5 B
       
c 19.400 5 A
Problems with LSD

 Only one value to compare many pairs

 Chances of making Type 1 Error increases with each pair of comparison
 Instead of P<0.05 it can become P<0.35
 Can only be used if there are small number of treatments <5
 To overcome this problem other measures are introduced
 E.g. Duncan’s Multiple Range Test, Tukey’s HSD, Dunnett’s etc.
In SAS many methods can be used

PROC ANOVA;
CLASS GROUP;
MODEL VALUE=GROUP;
MEANS GROUP/LSD, DUNCAN, TUKEYS;
RUN;
END