Application of Mahalanobis Distance in Education and Educational Psychology: A Mini Review

Abstract

Mahalanobis distance is a metric for the distance between groups regarding specific criteria. Mahalanobis distance is a measurement between two data sets in the space delineated by specific attributes. It will accurately assess the distance by giving various essential factors to the characteristics of data points since it considers variances and correlations between characters. Mahalanobis distance has an essential use in education in terms of achievement analysis. Mahalanobis distance is a powerful tool for drawing inferences between two groups of several variables. As it is a dimensionless, single number, it is easy to understand and interpret. Since this is a powerful tool, the application of Mahalanobis distance will increase rapidly to draw the inference. The paper examines the literature on Mahalanobis distance in education and its massive potential in educational psychology since 2020.