Cluster Analysis in R

Overview

Develop a strong intuition for how hierarchical and k-means clustering work and learn how to apply them to extract insights from your data.

Cluster analysis is a powerful toolkit in the data science workbench. It is used to find groups of observations (clusters) that share similar characteristics. These similarities can inform all kinds of business decisions; for example, in marketing, it is used to identify distinct groups of customers for which advertisements can be tailored. In this course, you will learn about two commonly used clustering methods - hierarchical clustering and k-means clustering. You won't just learn how to use these methods, you'll build a strong intuition for how they work and how to interpret their results. You'll develop this intuition by exploring three different datasets: soccer player positions, wholesale customer spending data, and longitudinal occupational wage data.

Syllabus

Calculating Distance Between Observations
-Cluster analysis seeks to find groups of observations that are similar to one another, but the identified groups are different from each other. This similarity/difference is captured by the metric called distance. In this chapter, you will learn how to calculate the distance between observations for both continuous and categorical features. You will also develop an intuition for how the scales of your features can affect distance.

Hierarchical Clustering
-This chapter will help you answer the last question from chapter 1—how do you find groups of similar observations (clusters) in your data using the distances that you have calculated? You will learn about the fundamental principles of hierarchical clustering - the linkage criteria and the dendrogram plot - and how both are used to build clusters. You will also explore data from a wholesale distributor in order to perform market segmentation of clients using their spending habits.

K-means Clustering
-In this chapter, you will build an understanding of the principles behind the k-means algorithm, learn how to select the right k when it isn't previously known, and revisit the wholesale data from a different perspective.

Case Study: National Occupational Mean Wage
-In this chapter, you will apply the skills you have learned to explore how the average salary amongst professions have changed over time.