Principal Axis Analysis Research Articles

Dimensionality of body awareness.

Bruchon-Schweitzer reported in 1978 and 1979 that Fisher's Body-Focus Questionnaire may be characterized by two main perceptual patterns, one of which is linked to orality and the other to anality. Results of a principal axis analysis of data for 300 American subjects contradict Bruchon-Schweitzer's conclusions based on responses of French subjects and affirm the independence of the Body-Focus Questionnaire Scales.

An On-Line Procedure for Recognition of Handprinted Alphanumeric Characters

This correspondence presents a procedure to recognize handprinted alphanumeric characters written on a graphic tablet. After preprocessing, the input character is segmented into a polygon using a simple segmentation procedure. A feature vector is formed by the parameters which describe the segments of the polygon. Classification is done in two steps, the first one based on structural information extracted from the feature vector and the second based on statistical decision rule using parameters of the segments. A recursive learning procedure is introduced in the statistical classifier. The evaluation includes the measurement of recognition rates using several statistical classifiers, the validity test on the hypothesis concerning the distribution of feature vectors and the possibility of further simplification using principal axis analysis. Databases were created and used for the evaluation.

Dimensionality of women's career orientation

Two factor analytic studies were conducted in order to determine the dimensionality of women's career orientation defined by various extant measures. In Study I, 86 women employed by an insurance company responded to nine different measures of career orientation. A principal axis analysis produced two oblique factors, which were tentatively named “Career Centeredness” and “Career Commitment,” respectively. Study II sought to validate the factors found in Study I in a sample of 335 university women in various disciplines and at various class levels. Using the factor pattern from Study I as the target matrix, a restricted maximum likelihood factor analysis showed that two factors similar to those in Study I accounted for all the significant common variance. Based on both statistical criteria and psychological meaningfulness, the two oblique (r=.43) factors were again named Career Centeredness (lifestyle in which one's career is regarded as more important, time consuming, and satisfying than other aspects of life, particularly family) and Career Commitment (lifestyle involving continued employment throughout life stages regardless of financial need or competing obligations). These findings are discussed in the context of changing societal support for women's roles in business.

A comparison of role concepts between public and parochial school teachers

This study seeks to determine if the same five bipolar factors that appear for the ideal role concepts of public school teachers also appear for parochial school teachers. Subjects included 185 teachers from a Catholic diocese. The data were factor analyzed by means of a principal axis analysis with varimax rotation. An analysis of variance was used to compare the factor analyses. The results indicated that parochial and public school teachers have similar factor structures. When comparing factor scores of the two groups, there were significant differences on several factors, indicating that parochial school teachers adopt a more facilitating role than do public school teachers.

The Absorption Scale: a factor-analytic assessment.

Abstract 95 female and 53 male introductory psychology students were administered the Tellegen Absorption Scale (Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974); the Repression-Sensitization Scale (Byrne, Barry, & Nelson, 1963); the F Scale (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levison, & Sanford, 1950); the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1970); the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale (Nowicki & Duke, 1974); and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1964). A principal axis analysis of the inter-correlations indicated that 3 major factors could account for the bulk of variance among the 6 inventories. Inspection of the correlation matrix and the factor loadings showed that the Absorption Scale shared a quite modest amount of variance with the remaining scales, and that it appeared to represent a dimension entirely different than those found in the other measures. These results offer strong support to the notion that the Absorption Scale is tapping a relatively new personality dimension.

Mood States and Acquiescence

The study sought to evaluate the influence of extreme response style on mood state factors isolated. The factors obtained after partialling out response bias from intercorrelations of adjectives were compared with those obtained from the original set. A sample of the 349 high school students were administered a 63-adjective feeling-and-mood inventory. A principal axis analysis of the adjective intercorrelations disclosed seven mood states, all monopolar. After extreme response-bias score was partialled out of the intercorrelations the matrix of partial correlations was analyzed and seven factors were identified. Three of the mood states identified were bipolar and four were monopolar.

Principal axis analysis of dental attrition data

AbstractThe principal axis method is an age independent analysis method for dental attrition data which avoids many problems associated with earlier methods of analysis, correlation and regression. A principal axis equation is determined from the scatter of M1 on X and M2 on Y, and the slope of the equation can be used to indicate rate of wear. High slopes indicate rapid rates of wear. Because rate of wear rather than degree of wear is the parameter of interest, the procedure is age independent. Confidence regions can be calculated to test the distinctness of the slopes. Dental data from three Amerind skeletal samples, Indian Knoll, Hardin Site and Campbell Site, are used to illustrate the technique. Because least squares fits such as the principal axis solution are strongly influenced by the magnitude of variance in the data, two different methods of ordinal data collection are used in this test: Molnar's 1–8 and Scott's 4–40 scales. The Scott scoring system provides more satisfactory results when used in the principal axis analysis technique because of smaller confidence regions. The testing of the technique on other samples is urged.

The calculation of magnetotelluric quantities for three‐dimensional conductivity inhomogeneities

Three‐dimensional numerical modeling is applied to magnetotelluric principal axis and tipper analysis. Calculations of the impedance, rotation angles, and tipper azimuths are made at the surface of a conducting half‐space which contains perturbed two‐dimensional models. The object is to determine which of the directions is less disturbed by the perturbations, and hence is the more reliable guide to probable strike direction. The results indicate that the principal axis direction is a marginally more stable indicator of strike direction than is the tipper azimuth.

Teacher-Principal Interaction Leading to Feelings of Concern or Pleasure

This investigation was concerned with the detection and study of types of behaviour of principals with teachers which led to teachers experiencing concern or pleasure. From free response data in an initial phase of the study, common sources of teacher concern and pleasure in teacher-principal interaction were derived. In the main phase of the study, the 13 concern-causing types of behaviour and 12 pleasure-giving types derived were investigated further. These items were scored by 232 teachers from 14 Queensland state high schools for degree of pleasure or concern experienced and frequency of occurrence. Principal axis analyses and subsequent rotation of the axes yielded three concern-causing factors, “Aloofness”, “Hindrance”, and “Lacking Consideration”, and two pleasure-giving factors, “Leadership” and “Support”.

PERSONALITY RESEARCH FORM: FACTOR STRUCTURE AND RESPONSE STYLE INVOLVEMENT1

ABSTRACTThe aims of this study were (a) to explore the factor structure of the Personality Research Form (PRF) and (b) to examine the inventory's relations with response styles. In general, the PRF content scales correlated moderately with each other and with measures of acquiescence, social desirability, and defensiveness response biases. Six oblique factors, identified as conscientiousness, hostility, ascendance, dependence, imagination, and carefreeness, were found in a principal axis analysis of the content scales. The stylistic measures' estimated loadings on these factors were scattered and moderate. Several factors were similar to the categorization of scales in the PRF manual as well as the factors previously obtained by Edwards, Abbott, and Klockars.

The Structure of College Goals

Higher education can serve a variety of functions or goals. Traditionally, researchers have developed a small list of college goals ( to prepare for a carcer, to make fr~ends) and had students either check the most important goal (Rose, 1964) or rank the goals in order of importance (Goldsen, 1951) . The purpose of this study was to factor analyze responses to a larger number of college goals presented as a College Goals Questionnaire to 172 freshmen ( 5 3 % of h e incoming class) at an eastern college in January, 1971. Ss rated the importance of each of 20 goals on a 5-point scale. Three factors, accounting for 34% of the total variance, were extracted (principal axis analysis) and rotated to a varimax solution. Ss scoring high on Factor 1 placed great importance on: learning more about oneself ( . 6 4 ) , being exposed to stimulating ideas ( .63) , learning to get along with other people ( .62) , learning more about society ( .61) , preparing oneself to help others (.56) , developing a set of values (.5 1 ) , preparing to make a contribution to the world ( .50) , getting a broad education ( .44) , and making interesting and rewarding friendships ( .42). Factor 1 seems to rap an intellectual-social dimension of college goals. Ss scoring high on Factor 2 placed great importance on : preparing for a prestigious job ( .76) , preparing for a high-paying job ( .74) , pleasing father and mother ( .52) , and finding out for what career they are best suited ( .33) . Factor 2, a career dimension, also involves such external referents as pleasing one's parents and obtaining a lucrative and prestigious career. Factor 3 seems to describe a more goal-directed aspect of career preparation. Ss scoring high placed great importance on preparing for a specific career ( . 5 9 ) , preparing for graduate or professional school ( .49) , and learning more about a specific subject of interest ( .30) . It was noted that the items dealing with careers broke into two factors. Although Factor 3 involved a traditional goal-directed orientation, Factor 2 was explicitly concerned with external referents of career success. It is interesting that the desire to please one's parents was related to other, more general indices of societal a p p r o v a l a high-paying and prestigious career. Future research might investigate the relationship between background variables and the importance of particular college goals.

A Factorial Study of Language Impairment of 269 Aphasic Patients with Cerebrovascular Accident

The Schuell-Sasanuma Differential Diagnostic Test of Aphasia, Form 2, was administered to 269 consecutively admitted cases of aphasia at a large rehabilitation center. An intercorrelation matrix calculated from the scores of 68 test items served as data for a principal axis analysis. Ten principal axes occupied 95.5% of the common factor variance. An orthogonal rotation in the factor space resulted in the identification of the following factors:Factor 1. Language behavior.Factor 2. Visuo-spatial and/or visuo-motor processes.Factor 3. Programming of articulatory movements.Factor 4. Auditory discrimination and recognition.Factor 5. Movements of speech musculature.Comparisons of the findings with those of a similar study by Schuell et al. revealed some overall similarities as well as some specific differences in terms of the factorial structure.Clinical as well as theoretical implications of the findings are discussed with regard to the neurophysiological correlates underlying the factors, and some linguistic characteristics of Japanese as they are reflected in aphasic performances, in particular in connection with the use of the two types of transcriptions, kanji and kana.Suggestions are forwarded for using a factor analysis approach as an aid to construct a clinically more useful model of language impairment in aphasia, i. e., by means of (1) devising more discriminative tests, and administering them to various aphasic groups, (2) submitting the results of these tests to the factor analysis, and (3) repeating the procedures (1) and (2).

THE CONTRIBUTION OF COMMUNALITY ESTIMATION TO THE ACHIEVEMENT OF FACTORIAL INVARIANCE, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE MMPI

ABSTRACTOne purpose of communality estimation in factor analysis is to promote factorial invariance, i.e., to improve the chances of recovering demonstrably related factor structures from diverse sets of variables and samples of subjects. Recognition of this purpose may help to resolve ambiguities that have appeared in efforts to define unique communalities for isolated correlation matrices. The estimation of even approximate values for communality may be well worth the effort as a contribution to factorial invariance.A convenient, programable procedure is described that leads simultaneously to useful estimates of communality and of the number of factors. On the basis of actual data for two samples, properties of the communalities obtained by this procedure are compared with those obtained from a conventional principal axis analysis using diagonal entries of unity.The clinical scales of the MMPI, plus Si, are judged to provide reliable measurement on at least eight orthogonal dimensions, each well‐marked by a different scale. Stable differences exist in the item‐reliabilities of the ten scales studied. Neither of these consistencies in the data for the two samples was available from application of the conventional analysis.Tucker's procedure for examining factor congruence is found to be capable of yielding misleading results in the context of poor communality estimates.