In educational research, a fundamental goal is identifying which skills students have mastered, which skills they have not, and which skills they are in the process of mastering. As the number of examinees, items, and skills increases, the estimation of even simple cognitive diagnosis models becomes difficult. We adopt a faster, simpler approach:…

Presents an exposition of two data reduction methods--single-link and complete-link hierarchical clustering. Emphasis is on statistical techniques for evaluating the adequacy of a completed partition hierarchy and the individual partitions within the sequence. A numerical reanalysis of data illustrates the methodology. (RC)

An empirical assesssment of the space distortion properties of two prototypic hierarchical clustering procedures is given in terms of an occupancy model developed from combinatorics. Using one simple example, the single-link and complete-link clustering strategies now in common use in the behavioral sciences are empirically shown to be space…

A relatively reliable and valid hierarchy of clusters of objects is plotted from the highest column entries, exclusively, of a matrix of interassociations between the objects. Having developed out of a loose definition of types, the method isolates both loose and highly definitive types, and all those in between. (Author/RC)

A class of closely related hierarchical grouping methods are discussed and a procedure which implements them in an integrated fashion is presented. These methods avoid some theoretical anomalies inherent in clustering and provide a framework for viewing partitioning and nonpartitioning grouping. Significant relationships between these methods and…