Mean square in ANOVA 2026-10-07
A mean square in ANOVA divides a sum of squares in ANOVA by its positive number of statistical degrees of freedom. If the corresponding residual subspace has scalar error covariance , its expectation is . Its scale depends on whether raw observations or group means were projected.
Both factors are assigned at orchard level. Therefore the experimental units are the twelve orchards; the trees are observational units within them. The six combinations form a balanced factorial design, replicated twice. The orchard ANOVA stratum has statistical degrees of freedom. Spray uses , pruning uses , and their interaction term uses , leaving six for error.
Dividing each treatment sum of squares in ANOVA by its statistical degrees of freedom and using as the denominator gives all missing entries:
Orchard sourceDegrees of freedomMean squareVariance ratio, one significant figure
Spray19984
Pruning25602
Spray by pruning22020.8
Residual6240Not applicable
The unrounded F-test statistics are , and . The within-orchard tree mean square in ANOVA, 180, is not the treatment error denominator: using it would confuse subsampling with independent replication. The tree ANOVA stratum has statistical degrees of freedom; is the uncorrected total, and the corrected total is 359.
The orchard residual mean square in ANOVA is on the original tree-response scale: it equals 30 times the corresponding residual mean square in ANOVA for orchard means. Thus the estimated variance of one orchard's sample mean is .
Each pruning marginal sample mean averages four independent orchard means, giving variance . Two different pruning marginals use disjoint orchards, so the variance of their estimated treatment contrast is
Each spray marginal sample mean uses six orchards. Similarly,
The corresponding standard errors are and in the units of weight per tree. These compare per-tree marginal sample means, averaging equally over the other factor, even when an interaction term is fitted. Comparing orchard totals instead would multiply these variances by .