Stepwise Regression and PLS

On Sun, 1 Feb 2004 11:09:28 -0800 (PST)
Jinsong Zhao <jinsong_zh at yahoo.com> wrote:

Dear all,

I am a newcomer to R. I intend to using R to do
stepwise regression and PLS with a data set (a

55x20

matrix, with one dependent and 19 independent
variable). Based on the same data set, I have done

the

same work using SPSS and SAS. However, there is

much

difference between the results obtained by R and

SPSS

or SAS.

In the case of stepwise, SPSS gave out a model

with 4

independent variable, but with step(), R gave out

a

model with 10 and much higher R2. Furthermore,
regsubsets() also indicate the 10 variable is one

of

the best regression subset. How to explain this
difference? And in the case of my data set, how

many

variables that enter the model would be

reasonable?

In the case of PLS, the results of mvr function of
pls.pcr package is also different with that of

SAS.

Although the number of optimum latent variables is
same, the difference between R2 is much large.

Why?

Any comment and suggestion is very appreciated.

Thanks

in advance!

Best wishes,

Jinsong Zhao

In your case SPSS, SAS, R, S-Plus, Stata, Systat,
Statistica, and every
other package will agree in one sense, because
results from all of them
will be virtually meaningless.  Simulate some data
from a known model and
you'll quickly find out why stepwise variable
selection is often a train
wreck.

---
Frank E Harrell Jr   Professor and Chair          
School of Medicine
                     Department of Biostatistics  
Vanderbilt University