# Difference in reported p-values between lm and aov in R

What explains the differences in p-values in the following aov and lm calls ? Is the difference only due to different types of sums-of-squares calculations ?

set.seed(10)
data=rnorm(12)
f1=rep(c(1,2),6)
f2=c(rep(1,6),rep(2,6))
summary(aov(data~f1*f2))
summary(lm(data~f1*f2))$coeff  ## 2 Answers summary(aov) uses so called Type I (sequential) sums of squares. summary(lm) uses so called Type III sums of squares, which is not sequential. See gung's answer for details. Note that you need to call lm(data ~ factor(f1) * factor(2)) (aov()automatically converts the RHS of the formula to factors). Then note the denominator for the general$t$-statistic in linear regression (see this answer for further explanations): $$t = \frac{\hat{\psi} - \psi_{0}}{\hat{\sigma} \sqrt{\bf{c}' (\bf{X}'\bf{X})^{-1} \bf{c}}}$$$\bf{c}' (\bf{X}'\bf{X})^{-1} \bf{c} $differs for each tested$\beta$coefficient because the vector$\bf{c}$changes. In contrast, the denominator in the ANOVA$F$-test is always MSE. • I think the first sentence of this answer is wrong. The difference seems to be precisely due to different types of sum of squares: namely, type I vs. type II/III. Type I is sequential, which is what lm reports, whereas Type II/III is not. This is explained in quite some detail in @gung's answer that you linked to. – amoeba Apr 17 '17 at 21:12 • @amoeba What do you suggest to correct the answer? – caracal Apr 24 '17 at 7:39 • I edited the first paragraph, see if you are okay with the edit, and feel free to change it as you like. – amoeba Apr 24 '17 at 11:04 set.seed(10) data=rnorm(12) f1=rep(c(1,2),6) f2=c(rep(1,6),rep(2,6)) summary(aov(data~f1*f2)) Df Sum Sq Mean Sq F value Pr(>F) f1 1 0.535 0.5347 0.597 0.462 f2 1 0.002 0.0018 0.002 0.966 f1:f2 1 0.121 0.1208 0.135 0.723 Residuals 8 7.169 0.8962 summary(lm(data~f1*f2))$coeff
Estimate Std. Error    t value  Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept)  0.05222024   2.732756  0.0191090 0.9852221
f1          -0.17992329   1.728346 -0.1041014 0.9196514
f2          -0.62637109   1.728346 -0.3624106 0.7264325
f1:f2        0.40139439   1.093102  0.3672066 0.7229887


These are two different codes. from the Lm model you need the coefficients. while from the aov model you are just tabulating the sources of variation. Try the code

anova(lm(data~f1*f2))
Analysis of Variance Table

Response: data
Df Sum Sq Mean Sq F value Pr(>F)
f1         1 0.5347 0.53468  0.5966 0.4621
f2         1 0.0018 0.00177  0.0020 0.9657
f1:f2      1 0.1208 0.12084  0.1348 0.7230
Residuals  8 7.1692 0.89615


This gives the tabulation of the sources of variation leading to the same results.

• This does not appear to answer the question, which asks why the p-values for f1 and f2 differ in the two summaries of your top panel. It looks like you are only showing that summary(aov(...)) and anova(lm(...)) in R have similar output. – whuber Apr 17 '17 at 21:26