Premium
Some Comments on the Use of Response Variable Transformations in Empirical Modelling
Author(s) -
Buxton J. R.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
journal of the royal statistical society: series c (applied statistics)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.205
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9876
pISSN - 0035-9254
DOI - 10.2307/2347519
Subject(s) - variable (mathematics) , computer science , econometrics , mathematics , mathematical analysis
SUMMARY This paper illustrates some practical difficulties that can arise when response transformations are used in empirical modelling. The ideas are discussed in the context of an investigation into the welding of high density polyethylene. Transformation of the response seems to be strongly indicated but leads to a model with a rather poor fit; this is attributed partly to the effects of the rather extreme variance function implied by the application of the transformation to the observed responses. Informal inspection of the data, together with the analysis of subsets, leads to a more meaningful and better fitting model. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the effect of transformation on the ease of interpretation of a model.