Subjects are classified in the groups in which they had the highest classification scores. The maximum number of discriminant functions will be equal to the degrees of freedom, or the number of variables in the analysis, whichever is smaller. Standardized coefficients and the structure matrix Discriminant functions are interpreted by means of standardized coefficients and the structure matrix. However, these coefficients do not tell us between which of the groups the respective functions discriminate. We can identify the nature of the discrimination for each discriminant function by looking at the means for the functions across groups.
Group means are centroids.
Differences in location of centroids show dimensions along which groups differ. We can, thus, visualize how the two functions discriminate between groups by plotting the individual scores for the two discriminant functions. Another way to determine which variables define a particular discriminant function is to look at the factor structure. The factor structure coefficients are the correlations between the variables in the model and the discriminant functions. The discriminant function coefficients denote the unique contribution of each variable to the discriminant function, while the structure coefficients denote the simple correlations between the variables and the functions.