James J. Cochran is Professor of Applied Statistics, Rogers-Spivey Faculty Fellow, and Associate Dean for Research in the Culverhouse College of Commerce at the University of Alabama. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and of Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences. He is also a recipient of the INFORMS Prize…

Analysis of variance (ANOVA), a technique included in many introductory statistics courses, analyzes the relationship between a quantitative dependent variable and one or more independent qualitative variables. The nature of the relationship is expressed in a model with unknown parameters. Many textbooks emphasize the mechanics of the technique…