Analysis Of Variances - ANOVA

While ANOVA seems like it should be the name of some Star Trek supercomputer, it's actually used to determine if there are statistically significant (i.e. actually legitimate) differences between three or more independent groups.

In plain(er) English, you've just implemented new workplace perks (liked mandatory mini-golf at lunch) for your employees at all levels. You want to see if there's a difference in employee satisfaction among entry-level, middle management, and/or upper level management due to the perks. Running an ANOVA will let you know if there are differences in productivity among those three groups.

ANOVA comes in two flavors. There's the one-way ANOVA which limits you to measure the effect of only one independent variable on one dependent variable across the three or more individual groups. The two-way ANOVA is much more powerful and allows for two independent variables to be measured against a dependent variable across three or more individual groups.