Chi-square automatic interaction detection: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:13, 7 November 2008

Revision as of 09:29, 18 November 2008

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Like other decision trees, its advantages are that its output is highly visual and easy to interpret. Because it uses multiway splits by default, it needs rather large sample sizes to work effectively as with small sample sizes the respondent groups can quickly become too small for reliable analysis.

CHAID detects interaction between variables in the [[data set]]. Using this technique weit canis possible to establish relationships between a ‘dependent variable’ – for example readership of a certain newspaper – and other explanatory variables such as price, size, supplements etc. CHAID does this by identifying discrete groups of respondents and, by taking their responses to explanatory variables, seeks to predict what the impact will be on the dependent variable.

CHAID is often used as an exploratory technique and is an alternative to multiple regression, especially when the data set is not well-suited to regression analysis.