Answer questions

Discriminant Function Analysis

1. Define discriminant function analysis.
Ans:

Discriminant

function

analysis is

a categorical dependent variable (called

statistical

grouping

analysis

variable)

by

to

predict
one

or

more continuous or binary independent variables (called predictor variables). The original
dichotomous discriminant analysis was developed by Sir Ronald Fisher in 1936.[1] It is
different from an ANOVA or MANOVA, which is used to predict one (ANOVA) or multiple
(MANOVA) continuous dependent variables by one or more independent categorical
variables. Discriminant function analysis is useful in determining whether a set of variables is
effective in predicting category membership.[2]
2. Purpose of the method.
Ans: There are several purposes for DA:
To classify cases into groups using a discriminant prediction equation.
To investigate independent variable mean differences between groups formed by the dependent

variable.
To determine the percent of variance in the dependent variable explained by the independents.
To determine the percent of variance in the dependent variable explained by the independents

over and above the variance accounted for by control variables, using sequential discriminant
analysis.
To assess the relative importance of the independent variables in classifying the dependent

variable.
To discard variables which are little related to group distinctions.
To test theory by observing whether cases are classified as predicted.

3. Describe number of discriminant functions.

Ans. There is one discriminant function for 2- group discriminant analysis, but for higher
order DA, the number of functions is the lesser of (g - 1), where g is the number of
groups, or p is the number of discriminating (independent) variables. Each discriminant
function is orthogonal to the others. Multiple group DF is equivalent to canonical
correlation.
4. How is discriminant function analysis different from MANOVA?
Ans. MANOVA and discriminant function analysis are mathematically identical but are
different in terms of emphasis

Discrim is multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) reversed.

Discrim is usually concerned with actually putting people into groups

(classification) and testing how well (or how poorly) subjects are classified .

In DA, the independent variables are the predictors and the dependent variables
are the groups.

Essentially, discrim is interested in exactly how the groups are differentiated not
just that they are significantly different (as in MANOVA)

5. Isn't discriminant analysis the same as cluster analysis?

Ans: No. In discriminant analysis the groups (clusters) are determined beforehand and the
object is to determine the linear combination of independent variables which best
discriminates among the groups. In cluster analysis the groups (clusters) are not
predetermined and in fact the object is to determine the best way in which cases may be
clustered into groups.

6. When does the discriminant function have no constant term?

Ans: When the data are standardized or are deviations from the mean.

7. What are Fisher's linear discriminant functions?

Ans: The classical method of discriminant classification calculated one set of discriminant
function coefficients for each dependent category, using these to make the classifications.
SPSS still outputs these coefficients if you check the "Fisher's" box under the Statistics option
in discriminant function analysis.
8. Discuss classification based on Mahalanobis distance in DA.
Ans: Mahalanobis distances are used in analyzing cases in discriminant analysis. For
instance, one might wish to analyze a new, unknown set of cases in comparison to an
existing set of known cases. Mahalanobis distance is the distance between a case and the
centroid for each group (of the dependent) in attribute space (n-dimensional space
defined by n variables).A case will have one Mahalanobis distance for each group, and it
will be classified as belonging to the group for which its Mahalanobis distance is
smallest. Thus, the smaller the Mahalanobis distance, the closer the case is to the group
centroid and the more likely it is to be classed as belonging to that group. Since
Mahalanobis distance is measured in terms of standard deviations from the centroid,
therefore a case which is more than 1.96 Mahalanobis distance units from the centroid
has less than .05 chance of belonging to the group represented by the centroid; 3 units
would likewise correspond to less than .01 chance.

9. What is stepwise DA?

Ans: Stepwise procedures select the most correlated independent first, remove the variance in

the dependent, then select the second independent which most correlates with the remaining
variance in the dependent, and so on until selection of an additional independent does not
increase the R-squared (in DA, canonical R-squared) by a significant amount (usually
signif=.05). As in multiple regression, there are both forward (adding variables) and
backward (removing variables) stepwise versions.

Stepwise procedures are sometimes said to eliminate the problem of multicollinearity, but this
is misleading. The stepwise procedure uses an intelligent criterion to set order, but it certainly
does not eliminate the problem of multicollinearity. To the extent that independents are highly
intercorrelated, the standard errors of their standardized discriminant coefficients will be
inflated and it will be difficult to assess the relative importance of the independent variables.
The researcher should keep in mind that the stepwise method capitalizes on chance
associations and thus significance levels are worse (that is, numerically higher) than the true
alpha significance rate reported. Thus a reported significance level of .05 may correspond to a
true alpha rate of .10 or worse. For this reason, if stepwise discriminant analysis is employed,
use of cross-validation is recommended.

10. How important is it that the assumptions of homogeneity of variances and of

multivariate normal distribution be met?
Ans: Lachenbruch (1975) indicates that DA is relatively robust even when there are modest
violations of these assumptions. Klecka (1980) points out that dichotomous variables, which
often violate multivariate normality, are not likely to affect conclusions based on DA.

11. Describe the assumption of homogeneity of variance/covariance matrices.

Ans. DA is very sensitive to heterogeneity of variance-covariance matrices. Before
accepting final conclusions for an important study, it is a good idea to review the within-

groups variances and correlation matrices. Homoscedasticity is evaluated through

scatterplots and corrected by transformation of variables.
12. How is logistic regression different from discriminant function analysis? When is it
better to use discriminant function analysis over logistic regression?
Ans: