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DegreesofFreedomTutorialRonDotsch
RON DOTSCH
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DEGREES OF F REED OM
TUTORIA L
A lot of researchers seem to be struggling with their
understanding of the statistical concept of degrees of
freedom. Most do not really care about why degrees of
freedom are important to statistical tests, but just want
to know how to calculate and report them. This page will
help. For those interested in learning more about
degrees of freedom, take a look at the following
resources:
This chapter in the little handbook of statistical
practice
Walker, H. W. (1940). Degrees of Freedom.Journal of
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D F1
Df1 is all about means and not about single observations.
The value depends on the exact design of your test.
Basically, the value represents the number of cell means
that are free to vary to get to a given grand mean. The
grand mean is just the mean across all groups and
conditions of your entire sample. The cell means are
nothing more than the means per group and condition.
Well call the number of cells (or cell means)k.
Lets start o with a one-way ANOVA. We have two
groups that we want to compare, so we have two cells. If
we know the mean of one of the cells and the grand
mean, the other cell must have a specic value such that
(cell mean 1 + cell mean 2) / 2 = grand mean (this
example assumes equal cell sample sizes, but unequal
cell sample sizes would not change the number of
degrees of freedom). Conclusion: for a two-group design,
df1 = 1.
Sticking to the one-way ANOVA, but moving on to three
groups. We now have three cells, so we have three
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Brown
eyes
Blue eyes
Male
CELL
MEAN
Brown
eyed
males
CELL
MEAN
Blue eyed
males
MARGINAL
MEAN
of brown
eyed
males
and blue
eyed
males
Female
CELL
MEAN
Brown
eyed
females
CELL
MEAN
Blue eyed
females
MARGINAL
MEAN
of brown
eyed
females
and blue
eyed
females
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MARGINAL
MEAN
of brown
eyed
males
and brown
eyed
females
MARGINAL
MEAN
of blue
eyed
males
and blue
eyed
females
GRAND
MEAN
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D F2
Whereas df1 was all about how the cell means relate to
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CONC LUSIO N
You should be able to calculate df1 and df2 with ease
now (or identify it from the output of your statistical
package like SPSS). Keep in mind that the degrees of
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Catherine says:
2.
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Colin says:
3.
Well done,
I just wanted to extend my gratitude as
this well well done and claried my
understanding of degrees of freedom
beyond here is the formula use it
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Nick says:
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Hi Nick,
The F values are important to determine
signicance jointly with the degrees of
freedom. From the degrees of freedom
in the F-tests you mention I can see that
the second result is based on more
observations. Given that larger sets of
observations are better at estimating the
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Motti says:
25.
If I try non-parametric analysis for Chisquare then the results and df=3 are Ok
and sensible so is that I need to use nonparametric analysis for departments with
innovation ? thnx
Reply
steve t says:
26.
Hi.
Thanks for that. Am I right in concluding
that a lower DF1 will make a particular F
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