I have two questions on running a sphericity test for a repeated measures ANOVA if people are willing to hear me out?
Here's a description of my experiment and data: my experiment involved testing different filter media to remove phosphorus from water. I have a total of 12 boxes (my "subjects") that represent 4 filter media in triplicate. In my JMP data table, each row represents a box, and for my columns, I have an "ID" column (basically 1-12 for my filter boxes), one column that's the filter media called "Treatment" (labeled "BF", "NF", "NS", and "WS" and repeated 3 times for each replicate), and subsequent columns are phosphorus concentrations for each time point (total of 11 time points, unevenly spaced). I've also included my data file with this post.
So, my questions:
1.) I performed a mixed model test as a repeated measures ANOVA on my data, but a JMP article says I have to test for sphericity to see if I need to adjust my F value in case I violate the sphericity test. To test for sphericity, I have to perform the multivariate test. However, I have missing data for certain time points, and JMP throws out the entire subject if any data are missing with the multivariate approach, which is why I went with the mixed model approach (I only have 12 subjects). How can I perform a sphericity test then, which seems to require the multivariate approach?
2.) I'm also trying to perform a repeated measures ANOVA using the multivariate approach on a subset of my data just to at least that subset for sphericity. I tried to run a MANOVA model with my data, but the sphericity test did not show up in my results. If I cut down on the number of time points that I have (I have 11 time points), which are my "y" values, the sphericity test does show up, but, depending on how many time points I include, the Mauchly criterion is either significant or not significant. I'm not very familiar with statistics in general, so I was wondering if anyone knows what's going on?
Does anyone have any idea why the sphericity test is behaving as I described? Are there other options for testing for sphericity that don't require a multivariate approach?
Thanks so much for any input! I'm not strong in stats at all, so any help would be appreciated!
Stephanie