Beware Ye Who Hunt Factor Analysis Monsters
In-Class Activity
Katie Hope Grobman
Searching for Sea Monsters
Let's sail about and try finding sea monsters.
Let's count them as we stumble upon each scene.
How Many Sea Monsters?
Reveal Under Murky Water
Searching for Sea Monsters
Let's sail about and try finding sea monsters.
Let's count them as we stumble upon each scene.
How Many Sea Monsters?
Reveal Under Murky Water
Searching for Sea Monsters
Let's sail about and try finding sea monsters.
Let's count them as we stumble upon each scene.
How Many Sea Monsters?
Reveal Under Murky Water
Reflection
Look back at our observations, they begin with the exact same scene above the water: a tail, torso, and head?
But we concluded differently each time.
And even knew which pieces are the same monster?
How did we know?
Correlating Sea Monsters
How could you tell the number of sea monster when you could only see parts of them? You saw visible parts move together and others move independently; you did an intuitive correlation.
Visible and Invisible Body Parts
By looking at the correlations between all the observable and measurable parts (operational definition), we can infer something about their underlying nature (theoretical constructs)
Factor Analysis of Sea Monsters
Factor Analysis is a statistical method that looks at how lots of different observations correlate and determines how many theoretical constructs could most simply explain what you see.
Sample Factor Analysis
item | factor one | factor two | factor three |
DM: left of 2 | 0.451 | -0.130 | 0.203 |
DM: left of 3 | 0.457 | -0.720 | 0.005 |
DM: right of 2 | 0.141 | 0.406 | 0.708 |
DM: right of 3 | 0.359 | 0.745 | 0.000 |
EI: Lion for Ride | 0.624 | 0.132 | 0.001 |
EI: Duck on See-Saw | 0.121 | 0.300 | -0.795 |
EI: Make Spaghetti | 0.501 | 0.000 | -0.162 |
EI: Shake a Rattle | 0.616 | 0.008 | 0.285 |
EI&DM: Drummer Jumps | 0.704 | 0.014 | -0.103 |
Applications of Factor Analysis
Psychometrics: Nearly every valid and reliable scale and sub-scale
Intelligence: Invented by Spearman (1904) to explain IQ as one underlying quality.
Personality: The Big Five personality traits are five factors of a factor analysis (Goldberg, 1990).
References
Gleitman, H. (1981). Psychology. W. W. Norton & Company.
Goldberg, L. R. (1990). An alternative “description of personality”: The Big Five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(6), 1216-1229.
Grobman, K. H. (2003) How social Learning opportunities and individual differences in working memory capacity contribute to the development of domain general problem solving strategies during infancy [Dissertation, The Pennsylvania State University]
Spearman, C. (1904). “General intelligence” objectively determined and measured. American Journal of Psychology, 15(2), 201-292.
Thank You!
Please see my website, a collection of lessons fostering self-discovery through online activities, hands-on classroom experiences, engaging lectures, and effect discussion prompts. Thank you! ~ Katie
Citation of this Lesson��Grobman, K. H. (2009). Beware Ye Who Hunt Factor Analysis Monsters. CopernicanRevolution.org (originally published DevPsy.org)