Factor Analysis by Diagrams PDF
Factor Analysis by Diagrams PDF
Factor Analysis by Diagrams PDF
Sullivan, Making sense of factor analysis: the use of factor analysis for instrument development in health care research. 2003, London: SAGE Publications (page 83). Developed by: Le Tan Phung, MD, MPH, PhD Candidate at QUT
Visually examine the correlation matrix. Are there significant strong correlations among the item?
No Yes
Drop the poorly correlated items from the analysis. Rerun the matrix
Drop one or more highly correlated items. Check the number of subjects per item (n>10-15). Rerun
|R|=0.0
Yes
|R|=1.0
No
The correlation matrix is a singular matrix, not positive definite. Some items are too highly correlated
No 0 <|R|<1
Examin the KMO and MSA values. Are they > .60?
KMO > .60 MSA > .60
Yes
A good Barletts test indicates that the correlation matrix is not an identity matrix (1 diagonal and 0 off) A good KMO suggests that there is sufficient sample size relative to the number of items. A good MSA indicates that the correlations among the individual items are strong enough to suggest that the correlation matrix is factorable (page 81)
1
EVALUATE THE CORRELATION MATRIX No Retest of Matrices Is the matrix factorable? Yes CHOOSE THE EXTRACTION METHOD
Do you want to explain total or common variance? Total Common Maximum Likelihood
Least Square
How many factors will you retain? Percent of Extracted Variance (5%) CRITERIA FOR RETENTION Insignificant Chi-square Values
Eigenvalue > 1
No No
Varimax
No ORTHOGONAL ROTATION
Direct Oblimin
|.5|
Quartimax
How large are the factor correlations? r = .00 CHOOSE THE ORTHOGONAL SOLUTION CONSIDER ORTHOGONAL SOLUTION 0< r <|.2| r>|.5| CONSIDER DROPPING ONE OR MORE FACTORS
r=|.3|
CONGRATULATION! You are ready to refine and names the factors You
REMOVE ITEMS FROM ANALYSIS No Is the weak-loading item important to the content area? Yes Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes (1)
Is there a common theme to the highloading items? Yes COMPARE GROUPED ITEMS WITH YOUR ORIGINAL CONCEPTUALIZATION
Are there several groupings within the factor? Yes CONSIDER BREAKING UP THE FACTOR
Are the grouped items consistent with the original conceptualization? Yes
No
Is there sufficient information to name the factor? Yes KEEP THE NAME SIMPLE AND DESCRIPTIVE
No
A REPORT OF A FACTOR ANALYSIS SHOULD INCLUDE (page 228): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. The theoretical rationale for the use of factor analysis Detailed description of the sampling methods of participants. Descriptions of the items, including means and standard deviations. An evaluation of the assumptions of factor analysis. A justification for the choice of factor extraction and rotation methods. Evaluation of the correlation matrix: Barletts test of sphericity, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test. 7. Criteria for extracting the factors: the scree test, eigenvalues, percent of variance extracted. 8. Cutoffs for meaningful factor loadings. 9. The structure matrix for orthogonally rotated solutions; the structure and pattern matrices and interfactor correlations for oblique rotated solutions. 10.Descriptions and interpretation of the factors. 11.Internal consistency of the identified factors (e.g., Cronbach alpha) 12.Approach to calculation of factor-based scores. 13.Assessment of the study limitations and suggestions for future research directions. 14.
ACHIEVING A SIMPLE STRUCTURE (Harman, 1976) (Pett @ page 132): 1. Each row of the factor matrix should contain at least one zero; 2. If there are m common factors, each column of the factor matrix should have at least m zero; 3. For every pair of columns of the factor matrix, there should be several variables for which entries approach zero in one column but not in the other; 4. For every pair of columns of the factor matrix, a large proportion of the variables should have entries approaching zero in both columns when there are four or more factors; 5. For every pair of columns of the factor matrix, there should be only a small number of variables with nonzero entries in both columns.