Bartlett's test

Bartlett's test (Snedecor and Cochran, 1983) is used to test if k samples have equal variances. Equal variances across samples is called homogeneity of variances. Some statistical tests, for example the analysis of variance, assume that variances are equal across groups or samples. The Bartlett test can be used to verify that assumption.

Bartlett's test is sensitive to departures from normality. That is, if your samples come from non-normal distributions, then Bartlett's test may simply be testing for non-normality. The Levene test is an alternative to the Bartlett test that is less sensitive to departures from normality.