APA Dictionary of Psychology

a statistical procedure for assessing possible group differences on a set of outcome or dependent variables. For example, a researcher could conduct a multivariate analysis of variance to assess whether a group of participants who receive a new educational method differ significantly from another group of participants who are taught with a traditional method on a set of achievement variables, such as quiz scores, homework scores, exam scores, and project scores. It is an extension of the univariate analysis of variance, which examines a single dependent variable.