Analysis of Variance Explained
(and a tool to do it!)

I. Scott MacKenzie

Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering

York University

Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3

Last update: 8-Feb-07

An analysis of variance, or ANOVA, is the main statistical tool used in human-computer interaction experiments.  It is used to answer research questions such as "Is the time to complete a task different depending on which of several interaction methods is used?"  In studying the analysis of variance, I found it useful to write a program to perform the test.  It was quite a grind, but I learned a heck of a lot.  The program is in Java.  While working on it, I also developed an API to explain the details.  Both the program and API are used in my teachings, and I usually put them on the course web site for students to download.  It seemed worthwhile to add them to the Research Notes on my home page, so here they are:

·        API (read here for all the details)

·        Download

If you find these useful or have other comments, I'd be interested to hear from you.