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In probability theory and statistics, the F-distribution or F-ratio, also known as Snedecor's F distribution or the Fisher–Snedecor distribution (after Ronald Fisher and George W. Snedecor), is a continuous probability distribution that arises frequently as the null distribution of a test statistic, most notably in the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and other F-tests.
The F table serves as a reference guide containing critical F values for the distribution of the F-statistic under the assumption of a true null hypothesis. It is designed to help determine the threshold beyond which the F statistic is expected to exceed a controlled percentage of the time (e.g., 5%) when the null hypothesis is accurate.
The resulting ratio, F max, is then compared to a critical value from a table of the sampling distribution of F max. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] If the computed ratio is less than the critical value, the groups are assumed to have similar or equal variances.
The F-test statistic is the ratio, after scaling by the degrees of freedom. If there is no difference between population means this ratio follows an F-distribution with 2 and 3n − 3 degrees of freedom. In some complicated settings, such as unbalanced split-plot designs, the sums-of-squares no longer have scaled chi-squared distributions ...
The textbook method is to compare the observed value of F with the critical value of F determined from tables. The critical value of F is a function of the degrees of freedom of the numerator and the denominator and the significance level (α). If F ≥ F Critical, the null hypothesis is rejected. The computer method calculates the probability ...
The critical value corresponds to the cumulative distribution function of the F distribution with x equal to the desired confidence level, and degrees of freedom d 1 = (n − p) and d 2 = (N − n). The assumptions of normal distribution of errors and independence can be shown to entail that this lack-of-fit test is the likelihood-ratio test of ...
The α-level upper critical value of a probability distribution is the value exceeded with probability , that is, the value such that () =, where is the cumulative distribution function. There are standard notations for the upper critical values of some commonly used distributions in statistics:
In statistics, an F-test of equality of variances is a test for the null hypothesis that two normal populations have the same variance.Notionally, any F-test can be regarded as a comparison of two variances, but the specific case being discussed in this article is that of two populations, where the test statistic used is the ratio of two sample variances. [1]