Statistical Tests in Breakdowns

Breakdowns are typically used as an exploratory data analysis technique; the typical question that this technique can help answer is very simple.

Are the groups created by the independent variables different regarding the dependent variable?
  • If you are interested in differences concerning the means, then the appropriate test is the breakdowns one-way ANOVA (F-test).
  • If you are interested in variation differences, then you should test for homogeneity of variances. The Statistica breakdowns procedure offers the Levene's test of homogeneity of variance as well as the more robust Brown-Forsythe modification of this test (these tests have practically replaced the older and less robust Bartlett's test and Chi-square test; note that a comprehensive selection of univariate and multivariate tests is also offered in the ANOVA/MANOVA module). See also, Exploratory data analysis and data mining techniques.