Unrotated Factor Research Articles

Deep lexical hypothesis: Identifying personality structure in natural language.

Recent advances in natural language processing (NLP) have produced general models that can perform complex tasks such as summarizing long passages and translating across languages. Here, we introduce a method to extract adjective similarities from language models as done with survey-based ratings in traditional psycholexical studies but using millions of times more text in a natural setting. The correlational structure produced through this method is highly similar to that of self- and other-ratings of 435 English terms reported by Saucier and Goldberg (1996a). The first three unrotated factors produced using NLP are congruent with those in survey data, with coefficients of 0.89, 0.79, and 0.79. This structure is robust to many modeling decisions: adjective set, including those with 1,710 (Goldberg, 1982) and 18,000 English terms (Allport & Odbert, 1936); the query used to extract correlations; and language model. Notably, Neuroticism and Openness are only weakly and inconsistently recovered. This is a new source of signal that is closer to the original (semantic) vision of the lexical hypothesis. The method can be applied where surveys cannot: in dozens of languages simultaneously, with tens of thousands of items, on historical text, and at extremely large scale for little cost. The code is made public to facilitate reproduction and fast iteration in new directions of research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

FACTOR ANALYSIS APPROACH-TAGUCHI-PARETO METHOD TO CASTING A356 ALLOY COMPOSITE FOR LIGHTWEIGHT WHEEL RIM COVER OF VEHICLES

The aspect of reinforcing re-usable A356 alloys with organic matters is a principal, success yet expanding in scope regarding new products development. Despite, the use of Taguchi-Pareto method has potentials for improvement. The purpose of this article is to examine the factor analysis- Taguchi-Pareto method at which identification of the key factors could be achieved while concurrently optimizing the factors. The point of integration is at the variance determination of the unrotated factor loadings and communality. The synergy between factor analysis and Taguchi-Pareto method provides practical assistance to foundry engineers to concurrently select key factors while optimising them. The factors were noted to be effective and responsive to the proposed method. The delta values are 0, 0.84 and 0 for LC1, WC1 and HC1, respectively while the ranks are WC1 as first while the second position is shared between LC1 and HC1. The optimal parametric settings are LC11 WC11 HC11, LC11 WC11 HC12, LC12 WC11 HC11 or LC12 WC11 HC12­. One of the optimal parametric settings is 0.280m of LC1 with 1.788kg of WC1 and 0.036m of HC1. The finding provides novel steps to the concurrent factor identification and optimisation in the choice of optimal parametric setting for the process. It is the first step towards sustainable foundry practice.

Psychometric validation techniques applied to the IND-VFQ-33 visual function questionnaire: the Hyderabad ocular morbidity in the elderly study (HOMES)

BackgroundOver 2 billion people suffer from vision impairment or blindness globally, and access to validated visual measurement tools in imperative in accurately describing and managing the burden of eye disease. The present study applies contemporary psychometric validation techniques to the widely used 33-item Indian Visual Function Questionnaire (IND-VFQ-33).MethodsWe first estimated the polychoric correlation between each pair of items. Next, an unrotated and oblique Promax rotated factor analysis, item response theory (IRT, using a graded response model (GRM)), and differential item functioning (DIF) testing were applied to the IND-VFQ-33. We subsequently propose a validated IND-VFQ-33 questionnaire after psychometric testing, data reduction, and adjustment.ResultsExploratory unrotated factor analysis identified two factors; one with a particularly high eigenvalue (18.1) and a second with a lower eigenvalue still above our threshold (1.1). A subsequent oblique Promax factor rotation was undertaken for a 2-factor solution, revealing two moderately correlated factors (+ 0.68) with clinically discrete item loadings onto either Factor 1 (21 items; collectively labelled “daily activities”) or Factor 2 (5 items; collectively labelled “bright lights”). IRT confirmed high item discrimination for all remaining items with good separation between difficulty thresholds. We found significant DIF on depression for six items in Factor 1 (all uniform DIF, except item 21 (non-uniform DIF) with no substantive difference in beta thresholds for any item and no substantive difference in expected individual or sum score, by depression at baseline. For Factor 2, only one item demonstrated significant uniform DIF on gender, similarly without major differences in beta thresholds or expected total score between gender at baseline. Consequently, no further item recalibration or reduction was undertaken after IRT and DIF analysis.ConclusionApplying IRT and DIF validation techniques to the IND-VFQ-33 identified 2 discrete factors with 26 uniquely-loading items, clinically representative of difficulty performing daily activities and experiencing difficulty due to bright lights/glare respectively. The proposed modified scale may be useful in evaluating symptomatic disease progression or response to treatment in an Indian population.

Teacher Beliefs About Sustainable Agriculture: A Self-made Measurement Scale

The study’s purpose was to analyze the validity of the construct of a self-made Alternative-Conventional Agricultural Paradigm scale using the teacher population teaching high school agriculture in the North Central Region of the USA. A random sample of 844 teachers was drawn. Teachers were self-administered questionnaires with 5-point Likert-type scales. Instrument inter-item consistency and item coherence were determined. The relatively high coefficient alpha (.82), mean item total correlation (.40), and unrotated first factors with modest number of items loading on the factor means that the scale has mainly one underlying construct. The teacher population holds consistent views and attitudes about SA constituting an agricultural paradigm. The instrument items are coherent as components of a whole and are related. However, the teacher population did not hold stronger paradigmatic views on the scale as can be expected because of their relatively low mean score item-total correlation and coefficient alpha for the instrument compared to what was found for the scale in the Beus and Dunlap (1991) study. This should be expected because agriculture teachers are not strong adherents of the two agricultural paradigms who can be expected to make extreme and polar scores on the scale. The instrument can therefore be used to preliminarily gauge the paradigmatic orientation of agriculture teachers in the region. Further research with the instrument with known groups supporting the two paradigms is necessary to establish its validity.

Test Diagnosis of Processing Disorders (APD) in Primary School - afactor analytical study

Our eclectic test battery for diagnosing Auditory Processing Disorders (APD) was applied in some pre-studies. Now, its underlying content structure should be examined by a factor analytic study. Test results from 143 children with APD with an average age of 8.3 (SD 1.1) yrs. went into several Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFA; principal component analysis). Considering the underlying correlations of the test variables, and in consideration of the results of discriminant analysis pre-studies, an EFA with 12 (of a total of 16) diagnostic test variables seemed appropriate. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin-measure of sampling adequacy was moderate middling to good (0.739). The determination of the optimal number of factors was based on the Kaiser criterion (eigenvalue > 1) and spoke in favour of four factors accounting for a cumulative variance of 63.7 %. AScree-Test confirmed the four-component-solution. The component matrix showed that the loadings of the unrotated factors was mostly large on the first factor and therefore hardly to interpret. To obtain a better representation of the components, a Promax rotation was conducted. A clearly interpretable pattern of the rotated loadings resulted, forming these four components: phonematic processing; verbal-auditory memory; fundamental hearing processing, and a processing component of low redundance speech. Based on these findings, a preliminary model of the central auditory processes of our APD-test battery was drafted as well as a contribution to construct validity made.

Development and validation of a research instrument for measuring the presence of democratic school leadership characteristics

The main purpose of this article is to describe the process of development and validation of a research instrument for measuring the presence of democratic school leadership characteristics. The instrument has been developed and validated in the city of Zagreb and Zagreb County in Croatia in four phases: theoretical construction; expert validation ( N = 6 experts); pilot research ( N = 77 teachers); and instrument structure validation through the main research ( N = 651 teachers). The expert validation and pilot research took place in 2018. The main research was conducted in January and February 2019. According to Carmines and Zeller (1979), the results of the factor analysis, which show that the instrument is measuring a single phenomenon, indicate that all four hypotheses have been fulfilled. More specifically, several aspects of the extracted (i.e. unrotated) factor matrix support the following four hypotheses: the (unrotated) factor matrix of all 32 items explains a total of 66.793% of the variance; subsequent components demonstrate the fairly equal proportions of the remaining variance except for a gradual decrease; all items have high factor loadings on the first component (from .603 to .861); and all items have higher loadings on the first than on the second component.

Personality facet loadings onto the general factor of personality change when social desirability responding is considered

The General Factor of Personality (GFP) has been found to be more robust under faking conditions and to correlate significantly with both self-report faking and social desirability responding, yet some still regard the GFP as a meaningful construct. This study examines the structure of the GFP (based on facet loadings on the first unrotated principal axis factor) when five individual social desirability/impression management scores (as well as the total) are partialled from the facets. Controlling for the social desirability/impression management variance altered the loadings of the personality facets. Specifically, loadings for the facets varied in magnitude, and for some, even changed direction when individual and combined measures of social desirability/impression management were removed. The results suggest that the GFP is not consistent in structure and is influenced by social desirability/impression management. Further, the results suggest that the interpretation of the structure of the GFP may change depending on how individuals present themselves when completing personality measures.

A tale of two general factors of personality in relation to intelligence and validity measures

Four general factors of personality (GFP) were computed by analyzing two different personality measures using two different GFP extraction methods within a sample of job candidates. GFP scores were computed by both examining the first unrotated factor of the scales and by examining the higher order factor following a factor analysis of the scales allowing for multiple first-order factors. The two GFP scores within each personality scale had high correlations (although for one measure the correlation was negative). In general, the GFP scores from each personality measure had only moderate correlations with each other. Also examined were correlations with intelligence measures as well as the validity scales for faking (good and bad), infrequency, and social desirability. Similar to past findings, lower-order scales had slightly higher correlations with the intelligence measures than did the GFPs for both personality measures. Three of the four GFP scores had significant positive correlations with faking good and social desirability but non-significant correlations with faking bad and infrequency. The results are interpreted as suggesting that GFPs differ based on the method of factor extraction, that the GFP scores reflect positive impression management, and that the GFPs are less informative than the lower-order personality factors.

Application of Factor Analysis on Academic Performance of Pupils

Over the years, efforts have been made by researchers in studying the effects of certain factors on academic performance of students, though with little concentration on the primary section of education. This research therefore worked on the academic performance of pupils in primary school. Variation in the analyzed performance and the factor(s) causing the variations were studied using factor analysis. The data used is a secondary data, collected from Federal University Wukari Staff School and it’s on the terminal examination scores of the pupils in seven selected subjects over one selected academic session (2015/2016). From both the un-rotated and rotated factor analysis results, we observed a fair relationship between the mathematical and less mathematical subjects, though they present the major variation in the pupils’ performance to be in the less mathematical subjects like English Language, Verbal Aptitude, Social Studies, Creative Art, and Religious Studies. Also, the analysis presented three factors (gender, age, and environment) to be the cause of the variation between the pupils performance in primary school.

Direct Schmid–Leiman Transformations and Rank-Deficient Loadings Matrices

The Schmid-Leiman (S-L; Psychometrika 22: 53-61, 1957) transformation is a popular method for conducting exploratory bifactor analysis that has been used in hundreds of studies of individual differences variables. To perform a two-level S-L transformation, it is generally believed that two separate factor analyses are required: a first-level analysis in which k obliquely rotated factors are extracted from an observed-variable correlation matrix, and a second-level analysis in which a general factor is extracted from the correlations of the first-level factors. In this article, I demonstrate that the S-L loadings matrix is necessarily rank deficient. I then show how this feature of the S-L transformation can be used to obtain a direct S-L solution from an unrotated first-level factor structure. Next, I reanalyze two examples from Mansolf and Reise (Multivar Behav Res 51: 698-717, 2016) to illustrate the utility of 'best-fitting' S-L rotations when gauging the ability of hierarchical factor models to recover known bifactor structures. Finally, I show how to compute direct bifactor solutions for non-hierarchical bifactor structures. An online supplement includes R code to reproduce all of the analyses that are reported in the article.

FACTORS AFFECTING THE SUPPLY OF AFFORDABLE RESIDENTIAL HOUSING UNITS IN KENYAN URBAN AREAS: A CASE OF NAIROBI CITY AND ITS ENVIRONS

Purpose: The study focused on the factors affecting the supply of affordable residential housing units in Kenyan urban areas in the case of Nairobi city and its environs.Methodology: A descriptive survey research design was used. The target population comprised of all the real estate agents, valuers and property managers with headquarters in Nairobi totaling 90. A sample of 40% or 36 firms was taken and a random stratified sampling technique was used to select the sample units. The study used primary data collected through using questionnaires as well as secondary data as a source of literature review. The data collected was analyzed by use of descriptive statistics. In particular, frequency tables and proportions or percentages were used. In addition factor analysis was used to supplement the descriptive statistics.Results: Findings from factor analysis indicated that the factors affecting the supply of affordable residential housing in Nairobi could be reduced to a three factor model. Findings from the study indicated that upon calculation of the rotated factor loadings, the Eigen Values of the three factors were still greater than 1 and the three factors still explained 75.51% of the total variance. The Unrotated factor loadings gave a clear picture of the importance of the variables to the factors. It seemed from the study that Factor1 was mostly defined by ‘legal’ variable, factor2 by ‘cost’ variable, and factor3 by ‘financial’, ‘socioeconomic’ and ‘infrastructural’ variables.Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study recommended that to address cost related constraints to the supply of affordable housing in Nairobi, the architectural community should engage in research on cheap building products. The government through the central government and through the newly created counties should make infrastructural investment a priority. The legal framework relating to housing needed to be overhauled by the introduction of a new act on housing. It was the responsibility of the government in collaboration with the private sector to ensure that the high level of unemployment was addressed, that the inflation rate was lowered to an acceptable level and that the economic growth was enhanced. It was important to increase the access of mortgages and housing finance products to both the banked and the unbanked. The factors affecting the demand of affordable residential housing in Nairobi and other urban areas would form an area of further study. In addition, the determinants of the prices of residential and non-residential houses in Nairobi would form an interesting study.

Dietary patterns of early childhood and maternal socioeconomic status in a unique prospective sample from a randomized controlled trial of Prenatal DHA Supplementation.

BackgroundDietary habits established in early childhood and maternal socioeconomic status (SES) are important, complex, interrelated factors that influence a child’s growth and development. The aim of this study was to define the major dietary patterns in a cohort of young US children, construct a maternal SES index, and evaluate their associations.MethodsThe diets of 190 children from a randomized, controlled trial of prenatal supplementation of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) were recorded at 6-mo intervals from 2-4.5 years by 24-h dietary recall. Hierarchical cluster analysis of age-adjusted, average daily intake of 24 food and beverage groups was used to categorize diet. Unrotated factor analysis generated an SES score from maternal race, ethnicity, age, education, and neighborhood income.ResultsWe identified two major dietary patterns: “Prudent” and “Western.” The 85 (45%) children with a Prudent diet consumed more whole grains, fruit, yogurt and low-fat milk, green and non-starchy vegetables, and nuts and seeds. Conversely, those with a Western diet had greater intake of red meat, discretionary fat and condiments, sweet beverages, refined grains, French fries and potato chips, eggs, starchy vegetables, processed meats, chicken and seafood, and whole-fat milk. Compared to a Western diet, a Prudent diet was associated with one standard deviation higher maternal SES (95% CI: 0.80 to 1.30).ConclusionsWe found two major dietary patterns of young US children and defined a single, continuous axis of maternal SES that differed strongly between groups. This is an important first step to investigate how child diet, SES, and prenatal DHA supplementation interact to influence health outcomes.Trial registration NCT00266825. Prospectively registered on December 15, 2005Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12887-016-0729-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Psychometric evaluation of the Dissociative Experiences Scale-Taxon (DES-T)

Current refinements of the dissociation concept have arrived at the distinction between a dimensional, non-pathological type and a discontinuous, pathological class of dissociation, which can be identified by a subset of 8 items of the Dissociative Experiences Scale, the DES-Taxon (DES-T). This study reports on the psychometric evaluation of the German version of the DES-T in a large general population sample (n = 2,359). The distributions of all items and the total score of the DES-T emerged to be non-normal and right-skewed with a sharp peak. The internal consistency proved to be high (Cronbach's α = 0.92), and all items discriminated well with item-total correlations above 0.65. An explorative factor analysis revealed that all items loaded on the first, unrotated factor with loadings of a ≥ 0.7 (explained variance 64%). The DES-T is a one-dimensional measure as indicated by confirmatory factor analysis. There were no relevant associations between the DES-T, sociodemographic characteristics, depression or anxiety. The prevalence of pathological dissociation was 1.6% in the general population. The DES-T proved to be an economic and psychometrically sound self-report measure for the assessment of pathological dissociative phenomena.

Instruments measuring perceived racism/racial discrimination: review and critique of factor analytic techniques.

Several compendiums of instruments that measure perceived racism and/or discrimination are present in the literature. Other works have reviewed the psychometric properties of these instruments in terms of validity and reliability and have indicated if the instrument was factor analyzed. However, little attention has been given to the quality of the factor analysis performed. The aim of this study was to evaluate the exploratory factor analyses done on instruments measuring perceived racism/racial discrimination using guidelines from experts in psychometric theory. The techniques used for factor analysis were reviewed and critiqued and the adequacy of reporting was evaluated. Internet search engines and four electronic abstract databases were used to identify 16 relevant instruments that met the inclusion/exclusion criteria. Principal component analysis was the most frequent method of extraction (81%). Sample sizes were adequate for factor analysis in 81 percent of studies. The majority of studies reported appropriate criteria for the acceptance of un-rotated factors (81%) and justified the rotation method (75%). Exactly 94 percent of studies reported partially acceptable criteria for the acceptance of rotated factors. The majority of articles (69%) reported adequate coefficient alphas for the resultant subscales. In 81 percent of the studies, the conceptualized dimensions were supported by factor analysis.

Estimating Standard Errors in Exploratory Factor Analysis

The article describes 6 issues influencing standard errors in exploratory factor analysis and reviews 7 methods of computing standard errors for rotated factor loadings and factor correlations. These 7 methods are the augmented information method, the nonparametric bootstrap method, the infinitesimal jackknife method, the method using the asymptotic distributions of unrotated factor loadings, the sandwich method, the parametric bootstrap method, and the jackknife method. Standard error estimates are illustrated using a personality study with 537 men and an intelligence study with 145 children.

A practical comparison of single and multiple imputation methods to handle complex missing data in air quality datasets

Datasets with missing data ratios ranging from 24% to 4%, corresponding to three air quality monitoring studies, were used to ascertain whether major differences occur when five currently used imputation methods are applied (four single imputation methods and a multiple imputation one). Unrotated and Varimax-rotated factor analyses performed on the imputed datasets were compared. All methods performed similarly, although multiple imputation yielded more disperse imputed values. Main differences occurred when a variable with missing values correlated poorly to the other features and when a variable had relevant loadings in several unrotated factors, which sometimes changed the order of the rotated factors.

Dissociations and associations of performance in syntactic comprehension in aphasia and their implications for the nature of aphasic deficits

Sixty-one pwa were tested on syntactic comprehension in three tasks: sentence-picture matching, sentence-picture matching with auditory moving window presentation, and object manipulation. There were significant correlations of performances on sentences across tasks. First factors on which all sentence types loaded in unrotated factor analyses accounted for most of the variance in each task. Dissociations in performance between sentence types that differed minimally in their syntactic structures were not consistent across tasks. These results replicate previous results with smaller samples and provide important validation of basic aspects of aphasic performance in this area of language processing. They point to the role of a reduction in processing resources and of the interaction of task demands and parsing and interpretive abilities in the genesis of patient performance.

Associations between cortical thickness and general intelligence in children, adolescents and young adults

Neuroimaging research indicates that human intellectual ability is related to brain structure including the thickness of the cerebral cortex. Most studies indicate that general intelligence is positively associated with cortical thickness in areas of association cortex distributed throughout both brain hemispheres. In this study, we performed a cortical thickness mapping analysis on data from 182 healthy typically developing males and females ages 9 to 24years to identify correlates of general intelligence (g) scores. To determine if these correlates also mediate associations of specific cognitive abilities with cortical thickness, we regressed specific cognitive test scores on g scores and analyzed the residuals with respect to cortical thickness. The effect of age on the association between cortical thickness and intelligence was examined. We found a widely distributed pattern of positive associations between cortical thickness and g scores, as derived from the first unrotated principal factor of a factor analysis of Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) subtest scores. After WASI specific cognitive subtest scores were regressed on g factor scores, the residual score variances did not correlate significantly with cortical thickness in the full sample with age covaried. When participants were grouped at the age median, significant positive associations of cortical thickness were obtained in the older group for g-residualized scores on Block Design (a measure of visual-motor integrative processing) while significant negative associations of cortical thickness were observed in the younger group for g-residualized Vocabulary scores. These results regarding correlates of general intelligence are concordant with the existing literature, while the findings from younger versus older subgroups have implications for future research on brain structural correlates of specific cognitive abilities, as well as the cognitive domain specificity of behavioral performance correlates of normative gray matter thinning during adolescence.

Core Dimensions of Recovery: A Psychometric Analysis

Core recovery dimensions lie between the large general factor of recovery and its underlying components. Identifying these could enhance recovery frameworks, practice and research. In contrast to existing conceptually based taxonomies, we sought to empirically identify the core dimensions of recovery through further psychometric analysis of a robust eleven factor (sub-scale) consumer recovery outcome measure, My Voice, My Life. We subjected the sub-scale scores of 504 consumers to further principal components analyses, beginning with a single unrotated factor and progressing through two to nine factors with varimax rotation. We found the five-factor solution to provide an orderly intermediate configuration with the eleven recovery factors having either aligned and/or disengaged through the process to result in the following core dimensions: (1) Belonging and relating (encompassing the individual factors of spirituality, culture, and relationships); (2) Being and doing (encompassing the individual factors of physical health, day-to-day life, and quality of life); (3) Thinking and feeling (encompassing the individual factors of recovery, mental health, and hope and empowerment); (4) Resources (which maintained its independence); and (5) Satisfaction with Services (which also maintained its independence). We compare this empirical configuration with conceptually based taxonomies.

Evidence for the general factor of personality (GFP) in the Big Five from 600 Iranians

Evidence for the general factor of personality (GFP) was found in analyses of correlations among scores on the Big Five personality factors (Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability) from 278 Iranian women and 322 Iranian men. The Big Five were measured by the Persian translation of the 50-item, self-report, International Personality Item Pool (Goldberg, 1999). Loadings of the Big Five on the first unrotated factor from principal components analyses revealed the GFP for the entire sample and for both women and men, separately. Results demonstrated cross-cultural consistency of the GFP. A possible neurological substrate of the GFP, prefrontal asymmetries, is discussed.