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infinitely many values; e.g., grade point average. In discriminant analysis, the dependent or criterion variable is group membership, which may or may not be on a continuum (it may be discrete). Thus discriminant analysis begins with defined groups and seeks to weight scores in order to achieve a maximal difference among group means; e.g., with the previously defined groups Academic Success and Academic Withdrawal.
The data were separated by college so that four
sets of models might be produced, one for each college in the study. Each of these four groups was further broken into two groups; the group who experienced academic success, and the group who met the antithesis of academic success (academic withdrawal). These groups were composed of the following individuals:
College Success Withdrawal Total Arts and Sciences 752 149 901 Business
Administration 387 88 475 Education 570 39 609 Journalism 247 27 274
Total 1,956 303 2,259
The BMD Biomedical Computer program was able to
perform the stepwise discriminant analysis for each of the colleges in one operation. Therefore, all data were loaded,