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I have data on a $M$ systems (say different material alloys). Each system (material) has $N$ variables (properties). I would like to correlate one variable(say material strength) of the system with a small sub-set of the variables $N_S$ (such as composition, crystal-structure etc.).

I'm not sure which analysis is more appropriate for this scenario. Do I need to use

  • factor analysis -- which I believe treats all variables as dependent variables or
  • multiple regression -- which treats one variable as dependent and others as independent variable.

Just to clarify, the variable values are not continuous i.e., for given value/range of variables, a system/systems may or may not exist.

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  • $\begingroup$ why not just do a correlation matrix? $\endgroup$ – mandata Aug 13 '15 at 16:08
  • $\begingroup$ I have no background in statistics. I read a little bit online and I just posted a question based on what I learnt $\endgroup$ – WanderingMind Aug 13 '15 at 16:18
  • $\begingroup$ In that case, start with a correlation matrix, and do a graphic, too, not just numbers. It is available in most stat packages. That is good, standard exploratory practice. $\endgroup$ – mandata Aug 13 '15 at 16:20
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When starting out with a data analysis, it is good practice to "look" at the data, which means poring over graphs of distributions, descriptive statistics (frequencies, proportions, means, ranges, etc), and try to get a feel for the data, without doing analysis that answers specific questions. In this case I would recommend building correlation matrices, both graphically and numerically. This will give you a sense of how the variables are related to each other, and will suggest what method(s) might be best to proceed.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you. Correlation matrix definitely looks like a good place to start $\endgroup$ – WanderingMind Aug 20 '15 at 12:40

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