Final answer:
To reject the null hypothesis in ANOVA, the p-value must be less than the chosen significance level, indicating significant differences between group means and fulfilling assumptions of the analysis.
Step-by-step explanation:
The factors most likely to lead to the rejection of the null hypothesis in an ANOVA test include a large between-group variance compared to within-group variance, resulting in a high F-statistic, and ultimately a p-value that is smaller than the predetermined significance level, often α = 0.05. To reject the null hypothesis, the ANOVA results should show that the probability of observing the data if the null hypothesis were true (the p-value) is less than the threshold α, suggesting that the group means are statistically significantly different and that at least one group mean is not equal to the others. It is critical to meet the assumptions of ANOVA, which include independence of observations, normally distributed populations, equal variances, and random sampling.