Discriminant Analysis

Discriminant analysis is a powerful descriptive and classificatory technique to describe characteristics that are specific to distinct groups and classify cases into pre-existing groups based on similarities between that case and the other cases belonging to the groups. The mathematical objective of discriminant analysis is to weight and linearly combine information from a set of p-dependent variables in a manner that forces the k groups to be as distinct as possible. This chapter provides a thorough and complete discussion of what investigators need to know and do to use discriminant analysis properly. It begins with a layout of the specific steps and procedures necessary to conduct a descriptive discriminant analysis. This is followed by a more detailed discussion of each step. Information about how to properly interpret the results of a descriptive discriminant analysis is provided, followed by a discussion of predictive discriminant analysis. Finally, it describes reporting requirements for publishing results of either a descriptive or predictive discriminant analysis.