ABSTRACT

DFA is the first method we discuss that uses a categorical outcome or dependent variable (DV). It is a rigorous multivariate method and shares much in common with multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) (Chapter 7), in terms of its mathematics, though the focus for research questions and interpretation may be more similar to multiple regression (MR) (see Chapter 4) and to some extent logistic regression (LR) (see Chapter 9). Interested readers can investigate other descriptions of DFA in several excellent texts (e.g., Grimm, & Yarnold, 1995; Huberty, 1994; Johnson & Wichern, 2002; Tabachnick, & Fidell, 2001). We approach DFA with the same 10 questions we used for other methods thus far.