Any method of fitting equations to data may be called regression. Such equations are valuable for at least two purposes: making predictions and judging the strength of relationships. Because they provide a way of em pirically identifying how a variable is affected by other variables, regression methods have become essential in a wide range of fields, including the social sciences, engineering, medical research and business. Of the various methods of performing regression, least squares is the most widely used. In fact, linear least squares regression is by far the most widely used of any...

Any method of fitting equations to data may be called regression. Such equations are valuable for at least two purposes: making predictions and judging the strength of relationships. Because they provide a way of em pirically identifying how a variable is affected by other variables, regression methods have become essential in a wide range of fields, including the social sciences, engineering, medical research and business. Of the various methods of performing regression, least squares is the most widely used. In fact, linear least squares regression is by far the most widely used of any...