What are the assumptions of a Two-Way ANOVA?

 Your dependent variable – here, “weight”, should be continuous – that is, measured on a
scale which can be subdivided using increments (i.e. grams, milligrams)
 Your two independent variables – here, “month” and “gender”, should be in categorical,
independent groups.
 Sample independence – that each sample has been drawn independently of the other
samples
 Variance Equality – That the variance of data in the different groups should be the same
 Normality – That each sample is taken from a normally distributed population

What are the hypotheses of a Two-Way ANOVA?

Because the two-way ANOVA consider the effect of two categorical factors, and the effect of the
categorical factors on each other, there are three pairs of null or alternative hypotheses for the two-
way ANOVA. Here, we present them for our walrus experiment, where month of mating season and
gender are the two independent variables.

 H0: The means of all month groups are equal

 H1: The mean of at least one month group is different

 H0: The means of the gender groups are equal

 H1: The means of the gender groups are different

 H0: There is no interaction between the month and gender 

 H1: There is interaction between the month and gender 

Summary: Differences Between One-Way and Two-Way

ANOVA
The key differences between one-way and two-way ANOVA are summarized clearly below. 

1. A one-way ANOVA is primarily designed to enable the equality testing between three or
more means. A two-way ANOVA is designed to assess the interrelationship of two independent
variables on a dependent variable. 

2. A one-way ANOVA only involves one factor or independent variable, whereas there are two
independent variables in a two-way ANOVA.
3. In a one-way ANOVA, the one factor or independent variable analyzed has three or more
categorical groups. A two-way ANOVA instead compares multiple groups of two factors. 

4. One-way ANOVA need to satisfy only two principles of design of experiments, i.e. replication
and randomization. As opposed to Two-way ANOVA, which meets all three principles of design of
experiments which are replication, randomization, and local control.

One-Way vs Two-Way ANOVA Differences Chart

One-Way ANOVA Two-Way ANOVA

Definition A test that allows one to make A test that allows one to make comparisons
comparisons between the means of between the means of three or more groups of
three or more groups of data. data, where two independent variables are
considered. 

Number of One. Two. 

Independent
Variables

What is Being The means of three or more groups The effect of multiple groups of two independent
Compared? of an independent variable on a variables on a dependent variable and on each
dependent variable. other. 

Number of Three or more. Each variable should have multiple samples.

Groups of
Samples 
Two-way ANOVA in SPSS Statistics
https://statistics.laerd.com/spss-tutorials/two-way-anova-using-spss-statistics.php#procedure

Introduction
The two-way ANOVA compares the mean differences between groups that have been
split on two independent variables (called factors). The primary purpose of a two-way
ANOVA is to understand if there is an interaction between the two independent
variables on the dependent variable. For example, you could use a two-way ANOVA
to understand whether there is an interaction between gender and educational level on
test anxiety amongst university students, where gender (males/females) and education
level (undergraduate/postgraduate) are your independent variables, and test anxiety is
your dependent variable. Alternately, you may want to determine whether there is an
interaction between physical activity level and gender on blood cholesterol
concentration in children, where physical activity (low/moderate/high) and gender
(male/female) are your independent variables, and cholesterol concentration is your
dependent variable.

The interaction term in a two-way ANOVA informs you whether the effect of one of
your independent variables on the dependent variable is the same for all values of
your other independent variable (and vice versa). For example, is the effect of gender
(male/female) on test anxiety influenced by educational level
(undergraduate/postgraduate)? Additionally, if a statistically significant interaction is
found, you need to determine whether there are any "simple main effects", and if there
are, what these effects are (we discuss this later in our guide).

Note: If you have three independent variables rather than two, you need a three-way
ANOVA. Alternatively, if you have a continuous covariate, you need a two-way
ANCOVA.

In this "quick start" guide, we show you how to carry out a two-way ANOVA using
SPSS Statistics, as well as interpret and report the results from this test. However,
before we introduce you to this procedure, you need to understand the different
assumptions that your data must meet in order for a two-way ANOVA to give you a
valid result. We discuss these assumptions next.

SPSS Statisticstop ^
Assumptions
When you choose to analyse your data using a two-way ANOVA, part of the process
involves checking to make sure that the data you want to analyse can actually be
analysed using a two-way ANOVA. You need to do this because it is only appropriate
to use a two-way ANOVA if your data "passes" six assumptions that are required for a
two-way ANOVA to give you a valid result. In practice, checking for these six
assumptions means that you have a few more procedures to run through in SPSS
Statistics when performing your analysis, as well as spend a little bit more time
thinking about your data, but it is not a difficult task.

Before we introduce you to these six assumptions, do not be surprised if, when
analysing your own data using SPSS Statistics, one or more of these assumptions is
violated (i.e., is not met). This is not uncommon when working with real-world data
rather than textbook examples, which often only show you how to carry out a two-
way ANOVA when everything goes well! However, don’t worry. Even when your
data fails certain assumptions, there is often a solution to overcome this. First, let’s
take a look at these six assumptions:

o Assumption #1: Your dependent variable should be measured at

the continuous level (i.e., they are interval or ratio variables). Examples
of continuous variables include revision time (measured in hours), intelligence
(measured using IQ score), exam performance (measured from 0 to 100),
weight (measured in kg), and so forth. You can learn more about interval and
ratio variables in our article: Types of Variable.
o Assumption #2: Your two independent variables should each consist of two
or more categorical, independent groups. Example independent variables
that meet this criterion include gender (2 groups: male or female), ethnicity (3
groups: Caucasian, African American and Hispanic), profession (5 groups:
surgeon, doctor, nurse, dentist, therapist), and so forth.
o Assumption #3: You should have independence of observations, which
means that there is no relationship between the observations in each group or
between the groups themselves. For example, there must be different
participants in each group with no participant being in more than one group.
This is more of a study design issue than something you would test for, but it is
an important assumption of the two-way ANOVA. If your study fails this
assumption, you will need to use another statistical test instead of the two-way
ANOVA (e.g., a repeated measures design). If you are unsure whether your
study meets this assumption, you can use our Statistical Test Selector, which is
part of our enhanced guides.
o Assumption #4: There should be no significant outliers. Outliers are data
points within your data that do not follow the usual pattern (e.g., in a study of
100 students' IQ scores, where the mean score was 108 with only a small
variation between students, one student had a score of 156, which is very
unusual, and may even put her in the top 1% of IQ scores globally). The
problem with outliers is that they can have a negative effect on the two-way
ANOVA, reducing the accuracy of your results. Fortunately, when using SPSS
Statistics to run a two-way ANOVA on your data, you can easily detect
possible outliers. In our enhanced two-way ANOVA guide, we: (a) show you
how to detect outliers using SPSS Statistics; and (b) discuss some of the
options you have in order to deal with outliers.
o Assumption #5: Your dependent variable should be approximately
normally distributed for each combination of the groups of the two
independent variables. Whilst this sounds a little tricky, it is easily tested for
using SPSS Statistics. Also, when we talk about the two-way ANOVA only
requiring approximately normal data, this is because it is quite "robust" to
violations of normality, meaning the assumption can be a little violated and still
provide valid results. You can test for normality using the Shapiro-Wilk test for
normality, which is easily tested for using SPSS Statistics. In addition to
showing you how to do this in our enhanced two-way ANOVA guide, we also
explain what you can do if your data fails this assumption (i.e., if it fails it more
than a little bit).
o Assumption #6: There needs to be homogeneity of variances for each
combination of the groups of the two independent variables. Again, whilst
this sounds a little tricky, you can easily test this assumption in SPSS Statistics
using Levene’s test for homogeneity of variances. In our enhanced two-way
 ANOVA guide, we (a) show you how to perform Levene’s test for
homogeneity of variances in SPSS Statistics, (b) explain some of the things you
will need to consider when interpreting your data, and (c) present possible ways
to continue with your analysis if your data fails to meet this assumption.

You can check assumptions #4, #5 and #6 using SPSS Statistics. Before doing this,
you should make sure that your data meets assumptions #1, #2 and #3, although you
don’t need SPSS Statistics to do this. Just remember that if you do not run the
statistical tests on these assumptions correctly, the results you get when running a
two-way ANOVA might not be valid. This is why we dedicate a number of sections
of our enhanced two-way ANOVA guide to help you get this right. You can find out
about our enhanced content as a whole on our Features: Overview page, or more
specifically, learn how we help with testing assumptions on
our Features: Assumptions page.

In the section, Test Procedure in SPSS Statistics, we illustrate the SPSS Statistics

procedure to perform a two-way ANOVA assuming that no assumptions have been
violated. First, we set out the example we use to explain the two-way ANOVA
procedure in SPSS Statistics.

Step

1. Click Analyze > General Linear Model > Univariate... on the top menu.

2. You will be presented with the Univariate dialogue box
3. ransfer the dependent variable,  Int_Politics , into the Dependent Variable: box, and
transfer both independent variables,  Gender  and  Edu_Level , into the Fixed
Factor(s): box. You can do this by drag-and-dropping the variables into the respective

boxes or by using the   button. If you are using older versions of SPSS Statistics you
will need to use the latter method
4. Click on the   button. You will be presented with the Univariate: Profile
Plots dialogue box
5. Transfer the independent variable,  Edu_Level , from the Factors: box into the Horizontal
Axis: box, and transfer the other independent variable,  Gender , into the Separate
Lines: box. 

6. Click on the   button. You will see that "Edu_Level*Gender" has been added to
the Plots: box,
7. Click on the   button. This will return you to the Univariate dialogue box.
8. Click on the   button. You will be presented with the Univariate: Post Hoc
Multiple Comparisons for Observed Means dialogue box
9. Transfer  Edu_Level  from the Factor(s): box to the Post Hoc Tests for: box. This will
make the –Equal Variances Assumed– area become active (lose the "grey sheen") and
present you with some choices for which post hoc test to use. For this example, we are
going to select Tukey, which is a good, all-round post hoc test.
10. Click on the   button to return to the Univariate dialogue box.
11. Click on the   button. This will present you with the Univariate:
Options dialogue box,
12. Transfer Gender, Edu_Level and Gender*Edu_Level from the Factor(s) and Factor
Interactions: box into the Display Means for: box. In the –Display– area, tick
the Descriptive Statistics option.
13. Click on the   button to return to the Univariate dialogue box.
14. Click on the   button to generate the output.