[Multivariate analysis]

Hi,

I would like to ask you which method I should apply in order to establish a relation between a set of parameters and a certain measure which is computed regarding this set of parameters. My problem is the following: I have a set of 8 parameters which have an influence over a measure. For these parameters I have a set of observations. First I've tried to use PCA, but then I stopped because I thought it is not correct. I've computed the correlation matrix ( which is the same as the covariance matrix when the variables are standardised ) and I saw that I have no relation between those parameters ( the correlation is 0 ), but there is a negative correlation for each parameter and the measure that I compute. Thus, I've change PCA with another multivariate analysis method: Multiple Linear Regression (this method try to find how a set of independent parameters influence a dependent variable). But, when I've computed this method I saw that the weights assigned to each variable are very low ( such as 0.17, 0.10 and so on ) and I tend to believe that I do something wrong with my data.

I would like, if you don't mind, to give me a hint about which method I could use.

Thank you! Elena