ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains the analogy between a common univariate statistical technique and the corresponding multivariate method is one of the principal didactic strategies used. Multivariate statistics refers to an assortment of statistical methods that have been developed to handle situations in which multiple variables or measures are involved. Any analysis of more than two variables or measures can loosely be considered a multivariate statistical analysis. The multiple regression analysis will serve as an excellent introduction to the true multivariate technique of canonical correlation commonly used to examine relationships between several dependent and independent variables. The Statistical Analysis System (SAS) is a computer package that was originally developed at North Carolina State University for use in statistical research. SAS was perceived as most closely tied to statistics, and was heavily used for agricultural and economic data analysis.
