ANOVA Statistical Programming with PHP

The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) technique is the most popular statistical technique in behavioral research. The ANOVA technique also comes up often in agricultural, pharmaceutical, and quality control contexts. This article will introduce you to six major steps involved in using this technique by implementing them with a combination of PHP, MySQL, and JpGraph. The result is code and knowledge that you can use to think about and potentially solve your own data-mining problems.

The scope of the ANOVA technique can narrow to include only the formal mathematics required to partition the total variance of a data matrix into between-group and within-group variance estimates. Within this narrow construal, one might also include the machinery to test whether the ratio of the between to within-group variance is significant (i.e., whether there is a treatment effect).

In this article, we will construe the ANOVA technique more broadly to consist of multiple data-analysis steps to take when conducting an ANOVA analysis. The ANOVA technique here is a methodical approach to analyzing data that issues from a particular type of data-generating process. The data-generating process will ideally arise from a blocked and randomized experimental design.