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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.
Example: To find 0.69, one would look down the rows to find 0.6 and then across the columns to 0.09 which would yield a probability of 0.25490 for a cumulative from mean table or 0.75490 from a cumulative table. To find a negative value such as -0.83, one could use a cumulative table for negative z-values [3] which yield a probability of 0.20327.
has an F-distribution with n − 1 and m − 1 degrees of freedom if the null hypothesis of equality of variances is true. Otherwise it follows an F-distribution scaled by the ratio of true variances. The null hypothesis is rejected if F is either too large or too small based on the desired alpha level (i.e., statistical significance).
The table shown on the right can be used in a two-sample t-test to estimate the sample sizes of an experimental group and a control group that are of equal size, that is, the total number of individuals in the trial is twice that of the number given, and the desired significance level is 0.05. [4] The parameters used are:
The mean and the standard deviation of a set of data are descriptive statistics usually reported together. In a certain sense, the standard deviation is a "natural" measure of statistical dispersion if the center of the data is measured about the mean. This is because the standard deviation from the mean is smaller than from any other point.
In a two-tailed test, the rejection region for a significance level of α = 0.05 is partitioned to both ends of the sampling distribution and makes up 5% of the area under the curve (white areas). Statistical significance plays a pivotal role in statistical hypothesis testing.
For example, with a chosen significance level α = 0.05, from the Z-table, a one-tailed critical value of approximately 1.645 can be obtained. The one-tailed critical value C α ≈ 1.645 corresponds to the chosen significance level. The critical region [C α, ∞) is realized as the tail of the standard normal distribution.