11.1 THE ESTIMATION TASK
Thus far in the Modeling Phase we have covered the following tasks:
- Classification task
- Clustering task
There remain two tasks left to cover:
- Estimation task
- Association task
In this chapter, we cover the estimation task; later, in Chapter 14, we will cover the association task.
The most widespread method for performing the estimation task is linear regression. Simple linear regression approximates the relationship between a numeric predictor and a continuous target, using a straight line. Multiple regression modeling approximates the relationship between a set of p > 1 predictors and a single continuous target, using a p‐dimensional plane or hyperplane.