How to perform post-hoc analysis with Tukey’s HSD test (in R, using agricolae)
Task
If we run a one-way ANOVA test and find that there is a significant difference between population means, we might want to know which means are actually different from each other. One way to do so is with Tukey’s Honestly Significant Differences (HSD) method. It creates confidence intervals for each pair of samples, while controlling for Type I error rate across all pairs. Thus the resulting intervals are a little wider than those produced using Fisher’s LSD method. How do we make these confidence intervals, with an appropriate visualization?
Solution
We load here the same data that appears in the solution for how to perform pairwise comparisons. That solution used ANOVA to determine which pairs of groups have significant differences in their means; follow its link for more details.
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# Load an inbuilt data set called InsectSprays and assign it to the variable df
df <- InsectSprays
head( df, 10 )
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count spray
1 10 A
2 7 A
3 20 A
4 14 A
5 14 A
6 12 A
7 10 A
8 23 A
9 17 A
10 20 A
We now want to perform an unplanned comparison test on the data to determine
the magnitudes of the differences between pairs of groups. Although R has a
built-in TukeyHSD function, its output is not as complete as the HSD.test
function in the agricolae package, so here we will use that latter function.
We provide it the same ANOVA results that we computed in the solution to
how to perform pairwise comparisons.
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# install.packages( "agricolae" ) # if you have not already done this
library(agricolae)
aov1 <- aov(count ~ spray, data = df)
HSD.test(aov1, "spray", group=FALSE, console=TRUE)
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Study: aov1 ~ "spray"
HSD Test for count
Mean Square Error: 15.38131
spray, means
count std r se Min Max Q25 Q50 Q75
A 14.500000 4.719399 12 1.132156 7 23 11.50 14.0 17.75
B 15.333333 4.271115 12 1.132156 7 21 12.50 16.5 17.50
C 2.083333 1.975225 12 1.132156 0 7 1.00 1.5 3.00
D 4.916667 2.503028 12 1.132156 2 12 3.75 5.0 5.00
E 3.500000 1.732051 12 1.132156 1 6 2.75 3.0 5.00
F 16.666667 6.213378 12 1.132156 9 26 12.50 15.0 22.50
Alpha: 0.05 ; DF Error: 66
Critical Value of Studentized Range: 4.150851
Comparison between treatments means
difference pvalue signif. LCL UCL
A - B -0.8333333 0.9952 -5.532742 3.866075
A - C 12.4166667 0.0000 *** 7.717258 17.116075
A - D 9.5833333 0.0000 *** 4.883925 14.282742
A - E 11.0000000 0.0000 *** 6.300591 15.699409
A - F -2.1666667 0.7542 -6.866075 2.532742
B - C 13.2500000 0.0000 *** 8.550591 17.949409
B - D 10.4166667 0.0000 *** 5.717258 15.116075
B - E 11.8333333 0.0000 *** 7.133925 16.532742
B - F -1.3333333 0.9603 -6.032742 3.366075
C - D -2.8333333 0.4921 -7.532742 1.866075
C - E -1.4166667 0.9489 -6.116075 3.282742
C - F -14.5833333 0.0000 *** -19.282742 -9.883925
D - E 1.4166667 0.9489 -3.282742 6.116075
D - F -11.7500000 0.0000 *** -16.449409 -7.050591
E - F -13.1666667 0.0000 *** -17.866075 -8.467258
The table above highlights for us those confidence intervals whose means are significantly different from zero, and provides other information as well. To see if there is any statistical different between the pairs, look at the “signif” column. The more asterisks appear there, the more significant the difference.
Content last modified on 24 July 2023.
See a problem? Tell us or edit the source.
Contributed by Krtin Juneja (KJUNEJA@falcon.bentley.edu)