Core-06 Unit: 3

BASICS OF FACTOR ANALYSIS

 What is factor Analysis?
• Factor analysis is often used multivariate technique of research studies,
specially pertaining to social and behavioral sciences.
• It is a technique applicable when there is a systematic interdependence
among a set of observed or manifest variables and the researcher is
interested in finding out something more fundamental or latent which
creates commonality.
• For instance, we might have data say, about an individual’s income,
education, occupation and dwelling area and want to infer from these
some factors such as, social class which summarizes the commonality of
said four variables. The technique used for such purposes is generally
described as factor analysis. Thus factor analysis, thus, seeks to resolve a
large set of measured variables in terms of relatively few categories, known
as factors.
• Factor analysis identifies the factors or psychological components in a test,
assesses their relative independence, correlates them individually to a
criterion for determining their individual contributions to the total test
scores.
• Factor analysis thus is a correlation between a group of tests for example,
tests for arithmetic problem, number completion, addition and
multiplication may show high positive correlation “numerical factor” in all
of them.
• Factor analysis is a technique that is used to reduce a large number of
variables into fewer numbers of factors. This technique extracts maximum
common variance from all variables and puts them into a common score.
 WHAT IS BLOOM TEXONOMY?

Bloom's Taxonomy comprises three learning domains: the cognitive,

affective, and psychomotor, and assigns to each of these domains a
hierarchy that corresponds to different levels of learning. It's
important to note that the different levels of thinking defined within
each domain of the Taxonomy are hierarchical.
• Bloom’s domains Three domains:
• cognitive (about knowing)
• affective (about attitudes, feelings)
• psychomotor (about doing)
• Formulated by Bloom and coworkers. Cognitive and affective
domains were completed and published in the 1950s. Psychomotor
was never published, although others have tried. It is arguably a bit
out of date (from the mid ’50s and at present being re-examined), but
helpful.
 Basic concepts in Factor Analysis
• Factor : A factor is an Underlying dimension that account for several
observed variables. There can one or more factors, depending upon the
nature of the study and number of variables involved in it.
• Factor loadings : Factor loadings are those values which explain how
closely the variables are related to each one of the factors discovered. They
are also known as factor-variable correlations.
• Communality :h2 Communality, symbolized as h2 , shows how much of
each variable is counted for by the underlying factors taken together.
• Eigen Value : When we take the sum of squared values of factor loadings
relating to a factor, then such sum is referred to as Eigen value or latent
root, Eigen value indicates the relative importance of each factor in
accounting for the particular set of variables being analyzed.
• Total sum of Square : When Eigen values of all factors are totalled , the resulting
value is termed as the total sum of squares. This value when divided by the
number of variables involved in the study results in an index that shows how the
particular solution accounts for what all the variables taken together represent. If
the variables are all very different from each other , this index will be low. If they
fall into one or more highly redundant groups and if the extracted factors
account for all the groups, the index will approach unity.
• Rotation : Different rotations reveal different structures in the data . If the factors
are independent, orthogonal rotation is done and if the factors are correlated an
oblique rotation is made. Communality for each variable will remain undisturbed
regardless of rotation but the Eigen values will change as a result of rotation.
• Factor scores: Factor scores represents the degree to which each respondent gets
high score on the group of items that load high on each factor. Factors score can
help to explain what the factors mean.
• Rotations minimize the complexity of the factor loadings to make the
structure simpler to interpret.
• Factor loading matrices are not unique, for any solution involving two or
more factors there are an infinite number of orientations of the factors
that explain the original data equally well. Rotation of the factor loading
matrices attempts to give a solution with the best simple structure.
• There are two types of rotation: Orthogonal rotations constrain the factors
to be uncorrelated. Although often favored, in many cases it is unrealistic
to expect the factors to be uncorrelated, and forcing them to be
uncorrelated makes it less likely that the rotation produces a solution with
a simple structure.
• Oblique rotations permit the factors to be correlated with one another.
Often produces solutions with a simpler structure.
 Purpose of Factor Analysis
• 1. The purpose of factor analysis is the simplification of a number of
interrelated measures. As a statistical technique it reduces a large
number of variables called factors.
• 2. The purpose of rotation is to achieve simple structure, that is, the
cluster of tests loading on different factors appear to be clearer as a
result of which the factor naming process becomes easier.
• 3. The purpose of factor analysis may be exploratory (creating
hypotheses) or confirmatory (testing hypotheses).
• 4. Factor analysis has been mainly used in developing psychological
tests such as IQ tests, Personality tests, etc. in realm of psychology .
 Merits of Factor Analysis
• The technique of factor analysis is quite useful when we want to condense
and simplify the multivariate data.
• The technique is helpful in pointing out important and interesting
relationships among that were there all the time, but not easy to see from
the data alone.
• The technique can reveal the latent factors i.e. underlying factors not
directly observed that determining relationships among several variables
concerning a research study. E.g if people are asked to rate different smart
phones according to preference, a factor analysis may reveal some salient
characteristics of smart phones that underlie relative preferences.
• The technique may be used in the context of empirical clustering of
products, media or people, that is, for providing a classification schemes
when data scored on various rating scales have to be grouped together.
 Limitations of factor analysis
• Factor analysis, like all multivariate techniques, involves laborious computations
involving heavy cost burden. In spite of the computer facilities now a days, large
factor analyses are still found to be quite expensive both in terms of time and
money.
• The results of a single-factor analysis are considered generally less reliable and
dependable for very often a factor analysis starts with a set of imperfect data.
• “The factors are nothing but blurred averages, difficult to be Identified”. To
overcome these difficulties, it has been realized that analysis should at least been
done twice. If we get more or less similar results from all rounds of analysis, our
confidence concerning such results increases.
• Factor analysis is a complicated decision tool that can used only when one has
through knowledge and enough experience of handling this tool. Even then, at
times it may not work well and may even disappoint the user.
 Conclusion

To conclude, we can state that in spite of all the said limitations,

when it works well, factor analysis helps the investigator make sense of
large bodies of intertwined data. When it works usually well, it also
points out some interesting relationships that might not have been
obvious from examination of the input data alone.