Editing Discrepancy function (section)

In [[structural equation modeling]], a '''discrepancy function''' is a mathematical function which describes how closely a structural model conforms to observed data; it is a measure of [[goodness of fit]]. Larger values of the discrepancy function indicate a poor fit of the model to data. In general, the parameter estimates for a given model are chosen so as to make the discrepancy function for that model as small as possible.<!-- <ref name="multiple">{{cite web | url = http://spin.magnet.fsu.edu/local/stat-book/glosd.html | title = Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Florida State University  | accessdate=September 10, 2006 }}</ref> --> <!-- Ref gone 404 --> Analogous concepts in statistics are known as [[goodness of fit]] or [[statistical distance]], and include [[deviance (statistics)|deviance]] and [[divergence (statistics)|divergence]].