In the ANOVA test, the dependent variables are required to be continuous, that is, ratio or intervals levels of measurements. On the other hand, independent variables in ANOVA are needed to be categorical, that is, ordinal or nominal variables. ANOVA is a parametric test and hence have an assumption that the data is typically distributed. There are two types of ANOVA, one way and two way ANOVA. One way ANOVA has only one independent variable and can have many categories to compare. In contrast, the two way ANOVA has uses two independent variables.
One way ANOVA research question: are their difference in GPA by gender, that is, males vs. females
Two way ANOVA research question: are their difference in GPA by gender, (male vs female) and by grade level (sophomores vs juniors)
The dependent variable in both cases is GPA, while the independent variables are grade levels and gender.