Can Matlab statistics toolbox look up z/t/z standard tables?

I recently plowed through how to do an ANOVA analysis. When I tried to do this via Matlab I found the calculated F quite easily with the anova1(y) function. The next step is to look up the critical F from the standard table (at the back of all high school text books on the subject). I was told that this is not possible!!!! That cannot be true can it? Those standard tables are fundamental to statistics. The person helping me at ML was very clever and found a way of doing this via an equation but is the inability to look up a standard table really not possible in ML?

Answer 1

[Helen Kirby]

Thank you very much SS, that really helped.

[Helen Kirby]

What I am doing is trying to look up the critical value Fc from the F table at the back of all college level statistic's books. I have v1=2, v2=14 and an alpha=.05. v1 and v2 are my degrees of freedom and alpha is 1-probability (prob) It would appear that: Fc = finv(prob,v1,v2) works! although god knows why it is finv, I am not inverting anything. This should be really trivial for Matlab to do, I suspect there is a bug judging by the dozens of questions on the internet as to how one can do such an easy peazy little operation. But anyway, you did set me on the right path, so I accept your answer.

[Helen Kirby]

OK, here is a little program which will enable you to get Fc after an ANOVA analysis (which gives you Fs amongst other things):

%%Let us find some Fc's given v1 v2 and alpha
alpha=.05;
prob=1-alpha;

%%input the degrees of freedom
prompt = 'Enter v1: ';
v1=input(prompt)
prompt = 'Enter v2: ';
v2=input(prompt)

%Now get Fc
Fc=finv(prob,v1,v2)

[Star Strider]

ttl = 'Inverse \itF\rm-distribution';
dfn = inputdlg('Enter numerator degrees of freedom: ', ttl);
nu1 = str2num(dfn{:});
nfn = inputdlg('Enter denominator degrees of freedom: ', ttl);
nu2 = str2num(nfn{:});
prob = inputdlg('Enter probatility (as decimal fraction, not percent): ', ttl);
pr = str2num(prob{:});
cv = finv(pr,nu1,nu2);
CreateStruct.Interpreter = 'tex';
CreateStruct.WindowStyle = 'modal';
msgbox(sprintf('\\itF\\rm_{(%d,%d)} \\itp\\rm %.3f, CV = %.3f ', nu1, nu2, pr, cv), 'Value',CreateStruct)

Answer 2

[Star Strider]

I deleted my original Answer (I delete all my Answers if they are not Accepted) so I’ll mention here that I (apparently correctly) linked you to finv and the other appropriate functions that calculate the other distributions and their inverses that you asked about. I left it to you to discover the functions most appropriate to what you need to do, since I was not certain what it was.

[Helen Kirby]

Yes, yes, you did indeed include finv. It was I who did not associate an inversion with what I was trying to do (still don't, but never mind) thanks to your guidance all is well. I am trying to Accept your answer, but it seems to be Accepted, I'll try again. Bye.

[Star Strider]

You have to un-Accept your own Answer first.