Exam 20: Cluster Analysis

The ________ method uses information on all pairs of distances, not merely the minimum or maximum distances.

The centroid method is a variance method of hierarchical clustering in which the distance between two clusters is the distance between their centroids (means for all the variables).

What are the steps in conducting cluster analysis (Figure 20.3 in the text)?

________ involves examining the cluster centroids.

When cluster analysis is also used for clustering variables to identify homogeneous groups, the units used for analysis are the variables and the distance measures are computed for all pairs of variables.

________ is a procedure that first assigns or determines a cluster center and then groups all objects within a pre-specified threshold value from the center.

In non-hierarchical clustering, the F test is only descriptive. Because the cases or objects are systematically assigned to clusters to maximize differences on the clustering variables, the resulting probabilities should not be interpreted as testing the null hypothesis of no differences among clusters.

The ________ method is based on minimum distance or the nearest neighbor rule.

________ are agglomerative methods of hierarchical clustering in which clusters are generated to minimize the within-cluster variance.

The dendrogram is read from right to left.

Which statement is not true concerning the clustering solution if the variables are measured in vastly different units?

________ is a clustering procedure where all objects start out in one giant cluster. Clusters are formed by dividing this cluster into smaller and smaller clusters.

Clustering should be done on samples of at least 300 or more.