SPSS® 12.0 Command Syntax Reference

Basic Specification
DISCRIMINANT 469
The basic specification requires two subcommands:
• GROUPS specifies the variable used to group cases.
• VARIABLES specifies the predictor variables.
By default, DISCRIMINANT enters all variables simultaneously into the discriminant equation
(the DIRECT method), provided that they are not so highly correlated that multicollinearity
problems arise. Default output includes analysis case processing summary, valid numbers of
cases in group statistics, variables failing tolerance test, a summary of canonical discriminant
functions, standardized canonical discriminant function coefficients, a structure matrix
showing pooled within-groups correlations between the discriminant functions and the
predictor variables, and functions at group centroids.
Subcommand Order
• The GROUPS, VARIABLES, and SELECT subcommands must precede all other subcommands
and may be entered in any order.
• The analysis block follows, which may include ANALYSIS, METHOD, TOLERANCE,
MAXSTEPS, FIN, FOUT, PIN, POUT, VIN, FUNCTIONS, PRIORS, and SAVE. Each analysis
block performs a single analysis. To do multiple analyses, specify multiple analysis blocks.
• The keyword ANALYSIS is optional for the first analysis block. Each new analysis block
must begin with an ANALYSIS subcommand. Remaining subcommands in the block may
be used in any order and apply only to the analysis defined within the same block.
• No analysis block subcommands can be specified after any of the global subcommands,
which apply to all analysis blocks. The global subcommands are MISSING, MATRIX,
HISTORY, ROTATE, CLASSIFY, STATISTICS, and PLOT. If an analysis block subcommand
appears after a global subcommand, the program displays a warning and ignores it.
Syntax Rules
Operations
• Only one GROUPS, one SELECT, and one VARIABLES subcommand can be specified per
DISCRIMINANT command.
• DISCRIMINANT first estimates one or more discriminant functions that best distinguish
among the groups.
• Using these functions, DISCRIMINANT then classifies cases into groups (if classification
output is requested).
• If more than one analysis block is specified, the above steps are repeated for each block.