IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/81665.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the interpretation of factor analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Armstrong, J. Scott
  • Soelberg, Peer

Abstract

The importance of the researcher’s interpretation of factor analysis is illustrated by means of an example. The results from this example appear to be meaningful and easily interpreted. The example omits any measure of reliability or validity. If a measure of reliability had been included, it would have indicated the worthlessness of the results. A survey of 46 recent papers from 6 journals supported the claim that the example is typical, two thirds of the papers provide no measure of reliability. In fact, some papers did not even provide sufficient information to allow for replication. To improve the current situation some measure of factor reliability should accompany applied studies that utilize factor analysis. Three operational approaches are suggested for obtaining measures of factor reliability: use of split samples, Monte Carlo simulation, and a priori models.

Suggested Citation

  • Armstrong, J. Scott & Soelberg, Peer, 1968. "On the interpretation of factor analysis," MPRA Paper 81665, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:81665
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/81665/1/MPRA_paper_81665.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. J. Guilford, 1961. "Psychological measurement a hundred and twenty-five years later," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 26(1), pages 109-127, March.
    2. Louis Guttman, 1954. "Some necessary conditions for common-factor analysis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 19(2), pages 149-161, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yang Zhang & Menglong Xia & Yingni Liu, 2023. "The Causality and Antecedents of Tourism Small & Medium-Sized Enterprises’ (SMEs) Coopetition in Complex Institutional Contexts," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-15, March.
    2. Ilse Botha, 2010. "A Comparative Analysis Of The Synchronisation Of Business Cycles For Developed And Developing Economies With The World Business Cycle," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 78(2), pages 192-207, June.
    3. Maurizio Vichi, 2017. "Disjoint factor analysis with cross-loadings," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 11(3), pages 563-591, September.
    4. Freeman, Steven F. & International Motor Vehicle Program., 1993. "Identity maintenance and adaptation : multilevel analysis of response to loss," Working papers w-0093a, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    5. Amare Abawa Esubalew & A. Raghurama, 2021. "The moderating effect of size on the relationship between commercial banks financing and the performance of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs)," Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, Springer;UNESCO Chair in Entrepreneurship, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, December.
    6. Carlos M. Del Rio & Lyle J. White, 2014. "Hylomorphic Attitudinal Spirituality," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(1), pages 21582440135, January.
    7. Brosnan, Kylie & Grün, Bettina & Dolnicar, Sara, 2018. "Identifying superfluous survey items," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 39-45.
    8. Yang Zhang & Su Zhang & Fu-Chieh Hsu, 2023. "Crisis Management Performance of Upscale Hotels in the Greater Bay Area, China: A Comparative Study in a Complex Institutional Situation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-24, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nico Migenda & Ralf Möller & Wolfram Schenck, 2021. "Adaptive dimensionality reduction for neural network-based online principal component analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-32, March.
    2. Anos-Casero, Paloma & Udomsaph, Charles, 2009. "What drives firm productivity growth ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4841, The World Bank.
    3. Gerhard Derflinger, 1984. "A loss function for alpha factor analysis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 49(3), pages 325-330, September.
    4. Yoo, Sun-Young & Vonk, M. Elizabeth, 2012. "The development and initial validation of the Immigrant Parental Stress Inventory (IPSI) in a sample of Korean immigrant parents," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 989-998.
    5. Kevin Handtke & Lisa Richter-Beuschel & Susanne Bögeholz, 2022. "Self-Efficacy Beliefs of Teaching ESD: A Theory-Driven Instrument and the Effectiveness of ESD in German Teacher Education," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-32, May.
    6. Horstmann, Felix, 2017. "Measuring the shopper's attitude toward the point of sale display: Scale development and validation," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 112-123.
    7. Jaung, Wanggi & Putzel, Louis & Bull, Gary Q. & Kozak, Robert & Markum,, 2016. "Certification of forest watershed services: A Q methodology analysis of opportunities and challenges in Lombok, Indonesia," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 22(PA), pages 51-59.
    8. Chun, JongSerl & Kim, Jinyung & Lee, Serim, 2023. "Development of a cyberbullying victimization scale for adolescents in South Korea," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    9. Philip DuBois, 1960. "An analysis of Guttman's simplex," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 25(2), pages 173-182, June.
    10. Trucíos, Carlos & Hotta, Luiz K. & Valls Pereira, Pedro L., 2019. "On the robustness of the principal volatility components," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 201-219.
    11. Christina Chiang & Paul K. Wells & Peter Fieger & Divesh S. Sharma, 2021. "An investigation into student satisfaction, approaches to learning and the learning context in Auditing," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(1), pages 913-936, March.
    12. James Arthur & Stephen R. Earl & Aidan P. Thompson & Joseph W. Ward, 2021. "The Value of Character-Based Judgement in the Professional Domain," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 169(2), pages 293-308, March.
    13. Carlos Trucíos & Mauricio Zevallos & Luiz K. Hotta & André A. P. Santos, 2019. "Covariance Prediction in Large Portfolio Allocation," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-24, May.
    14. Siew Mooi Ching & Anne Yee & Vasudevan Ramachandran & Sazlyna Mohd Sazlly Lim & Wan Aliaa Wan Sulaiman & Yoke Loong Foo & Fan kee Hoo, 2015. "Validation of a Malay Version of the Smartphone Addiction Scale among Medical Students in Malaysia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(10), pages 1-11, October.
    15. Daniel Polakow & Tim Gebbie, 2008. "How many independent bets are there?," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(4), pages 278-288, October.
    16. Alvaro Cuervo-Cazurra & Anna Grosman & Geoffrey T. Wood, 2023. "Cross-country variations in sovereign wealth funds’ transparency," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(3), pages 306-329, September.
    17. Edward Meyer, 1973. "The guttman-harris uniqueness estimates," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 38(3), pages 371-374, September.
    18. Jennifer Roberts & Gurleen Popli & Rosemary J. Harris, 2018. "Do environmental concerns affect commuting choices?: hybrid choice modelling with household survey data," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 181(1), pages 299-320, January.
    19. Cheng Chen & Susanne Weyland & Julian Fritsch & Alexander Woll & Claudia Niessner & Alexander Burchartz & Steffen C. E. Schmidt & Darko Jekauc, 2021. "A Short Version of the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale: Development and Psychometric Properties," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(21), pages 1-15, October.
    20. Szczygielski, Jan Jakub & Charteris, Ailie & Bwanya, Princess Rutendo & Brzeszczyński, Janusz, 2022. "The impact and role of COVID-19 uncertainty: A global industry analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    factor analysis; statistics; marketing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C4 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics
    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:81665. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.