The answer is b) false.
In ANOVA (Analysis of Variance), the F value is a ratio of variances and is calculated as the variance between the group means divided by the variance within the groups. Since variances are always non-negative, the resulting F value can never be negative.
To elaborate, the F statistic measures how much the group means differ from each other (between-group variance) relative to the variability within each group (within-group variance). If the between-group variance is less than the within-group variance, the F value will be close to zero but still positive. Therefore, it’s impossible for the F value to take on a negative value.