DISCRIMINANT-ANALYSIS VIA STATISTICAL PACKAGES

The two aspects of discriminant analysis are briefly reviewed: predict ive discriminant analysis (PDA) and descriptive discriminant analysis (DDA). Use of three popular statistical packages (BMDP, SAS, and SPSS) to obtain computational results for a PDA and for a DDA is generally reviewed. Results yielded by two BMDP procedures (7M and 5M) are discu ssed, as are four SAS procedures (DISCRIM, STEPDISC, CANDISC, and GLM) , and two SPSS procedures (DISCRIMINANT and MANOVA). It is pointed out which procedures are used to obtain PDA results and which are used fo r DDA results. Examples of printout information are given. Some of the se examples pertain to misleading information-one to incorrect informa tion, and some, of course, to very useful information. The need for no npackage analyses to generate specific PDA and DDA information is also mentioned.