Simulation-Based Power Analysis for Factorial Analysis of Variance Designs

Abstract

Researchers often rely on analysis of variance (ANOVA) when they report results of experiments. To ensure that a study is adequately powered to yield informative results with an ANOVA, researchers can perform an a priori power analysis. However, power analysis for factorial ANOVA designs is often a challenge. Current software solutions do not allow power analyses for complex designs with several within-participants factors. Moreover, power analyses often need η p 2 or Cohen’s f as input, but these effect sizes are not intuitive and do not generalize to different experimental designs. We have created the R package Superpower and online Shiny apps to enable researchers without extensive programming experience to perform simulation-based power analysis for ANOVA designs of up to three within- or between-participants factors. Predicted effects are entered by specifying means, standard deviations, and, for within-participants factors, the correlations. The simulation provides the statistical power for all ANOVA main effects, interactions, and individual comparisons. The software can plot power across a range of sample sizes, can control for multiple comparisons, and can compute power when the homogeneity or sphericity assumption is violated. This Tutorial demonstrates how to perform a priori power analysis to design informative studies for main effects, interactions, and individual comparisons and highlights important factors that determine the statistical power for factorial ANOVA designs.