One-stage Rotation Method For Second-order Factor Analysis

• Main Authors: Hsieh, Hsingchuan, 謝幸娟
• Other Authors: Cheng, Chungping
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/12119684686134489819

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 心理學研究所 === 100 === Traditionally, in second-order factor analysis, the first-order factors are extracted and such factors are subsequently regarded as new observed variables so second- order factors are extracted. Since the second-order factors are determined by the first-order ones, the conventional two-staged method will cause problems if the preselection for the first-order factors is inappropriate. An intuitive way to solve the problem is, when extracting the first-order factors, to evaluate its effect upon the second -order ones. Specifically, we’d like to define a new rotation criterion to assess the performance for both pattern matrices simultaneously. Such estimation process is hence reduced to a one-staged method. To testify the efficiency of such criterion, we analyzed three simulated and one real datasets, then compared the results between the two-staged and one-staged methods. The results showed that the proposed method performed better when the first-order pattern matrix is complex but worse when so is the second-order pattern matrix. The proposed method can also apply to other rotation criteria. Besides, assumption about the correct numbers of first- and second-order factors is not always the case. A future research for determining the numbers of these factors is needed.