A worked example of a two-way ANOVA with 2 between-subjects

factors

Step 1

Open the file in this case Anova_in_SPSS_input.sav

From the menu bar go to Analyze, choose General Linear Model and then Univariate.
This will give you the following screen
On the left you see a list of variables. You need to choose which ones you want to
analyse.
Step 2

In this case, no. of hours studied is our dependent variable and sex and year are fixed
factors. Move them in to the corresponding boxes as shown then click on OK.
This gives you an Output File which looks like this (see also the file
Anova_in_SPSS_output.spo):
Step 3

Now you need to interpret your results.

You do this by looking at the table labeled Tests of Between-Subjects Effects.

To interpret this table you will be focusing on the columns labeled Source, F and
Sig..

The F-value for the main effect of SEX is 1.857 which corresponds to sig. = .186.
This obtained probability value is higher than .05 so we can say that the main effect of
SEX is not significant (with a set at the .05 level). In other words there is no
significant difference in the mean no of hours spent studying between males and
females.

The F-value for the main effect of YEAR is 6.190 which corresponds to sig. = .007.
This obtained probability value is lower than .05 so we can say that the main effect of
YEAR is significant. By examining the means or a graph we can see that students in
later years spending more hours studying than those in earlier years.

The F-value for the SEX*YEAR interaction effect 0.445 which corresponds to sig. =
.646. This significance level is higher than .05 so we can say that the main effect of
SEX is not significant.