FV_TEST

The FV_TEST function computes the F-statistic and the probability that two sample populations X and Y have significantly different variances. X and Y may be of different lengths. The F-statistic formula for sample populations x and y with means x and y is defined as:

where x = (x₀, x₁, x₂, ..., x_N-1) and y = (y₀, y₁, y₂ ..., y_M-1)

This routine is written in the IDL language. Its source code can be found in the file fv_test.pro in the lib subdirectory of the IDL distribution.

Examples

; Define two n-element sample populations:
X = [257, 208, 296, 324, 240, 246, 267, 311, 324, 323, 263, $
   305, 270, 260, 251, 275, 288, 242, 304, 267]
Y = [201,  56, 185, 221, 165, 161, 182, 239, 278, 243, 197, $
    271, 214, 216, 175, 192, 208, 150, 281, 196]
; Compute the F-statistic (of X and Y) and its significance:
PRINT, FV_TEST(X, Y)

IDL prints:

2.48578    0.0540116

The result indicates that X and Y have significantly different variances.

Syntax

Result = FV_TEST(X, Y)

Return Value

The result is a two-element vector containing the F-statistic and its significance. The significance is a value in the interval [0.0, 1.0]; a small value (0.05 or 0.01) indicates that X and Y have significantly different variances. This type of test is often referred to as the F-variance test.

Arguments

X

An n-element integer, single- or double-precision floating-point vector.

Y

An m-element integer, single- or double-precision floating-point vector.

Keywords

None.

Version History

4.0	Introduced