40-1 EFA - 2019 - Upld
40-1 EFA - 2019 - Upld
40-1 EFA - 2019 - Upld
ANALYSIS
To the extent that a variable is abstract and latent rather than concrete and
observable (such as the rating itself), it is called a “construct.” Such a variable is
literally something that scientists “construct” (put together from their
own imaginations) and which does not exist as an observable
dimension of behavior… Nearly all theories concern statements about
constructs rather than about specific, observable variables because constructs are
more general than specific behaviors by definition.
(MacKenzie, S., Podsakoff, P., Podsakoff, N., Construct measurement and validation procedures in MIS
and behavioral research: integrating new and existing techniques, p. 298)
HOW DO WE DECIDE?
Structure of the entire construct and relationship between the dimension
• Sub-dimensions are manifestation of the overall construct or defining characteristics of it?
• Does the construct exist separately on a deeper level than its sub-dimensions?
• Is the change with the overall construct associated with change in all of the sub-dimensions or is it possible that it is
associated only with one/few of them?
LATENT
AGGREGATE
PROFILE
EXAMPLE- OCB
• Organizational citizenship behaviour- displaying extra-role behaviour at work (not officially required
to do and not paid for)- individuals that display high OCB will be scoring high on sub-dimensions
which are altruism, sportsmanship, civic virtue, courtesy and conscientiousness, these sub-
dimensions are captured via reflective constructs
• OCB exists at a deeper level than the sub-dimensions and we expect an individual who scores high
on OCB to score high on all 5 sub-dimensions (they are related) as they together reflect/manifest this
personal quality of the employee
BOTH PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS AND EFA SIMPLIFY DATA- DATA REDUCTION
BUT THEY ARE NOT THE SAME METHOD AND HAVE DISTINCT
PURPOSE!!!
• Components- just simplified data
• Factors- theoretically determined- they are operationalizations of the underlying processes
Observed
variables/items
Factor loadings
• PERFORM- extract factors- the core task is to repackage the correlation matrix and find the factors and its association
with each variable- factor loadings
• Initially we have as many factors as variables
• We extract only the interesting factors and force all items to be expressed through them
• ROTATE- Rotation of factors to increase interpretability-we want to find which items belong to which factor- where
is the highest factor loadings, we then delete variables that had low association with the retained factors
• INTERPRETATION- Interpret the results, save factors for future analysis- ending up with clear structure (no
overlap between factors) we interpret the factors (name the underlying pattern) and save the factor scores for future
analysis
Outliers
• Visual tools- histograms, q-q plots, box plots
• Variables with low squared multiple correlation and low correlation with the factors are outliers and should be removed (you’ll find them
during the analysis)
FROM:
https
://stats.idre.ucla.edu/spss/seminars/efa-
spss/
• Communalities
Initial communalities in EFA are squared multiple correlations of each variable (shared variance with other variables), in
PCA it is not calculated it is set to 1 (100%) so all the variance of the variable
Extracted communalities (in EFA and PCA)- sum of squared loadings for a variable across all extracted factors
(components), also shows how much variance on that particular variable has been explained by the extracted factors
(components)
Rules of thumb?
• Kaiser criterion- we should keep all the factors that have eigenvalues higher than 1
• Scree plot- eigenvalues plotted against factors, shows how much variance is explained in each factor, usually ordered in
descending order, so we are looking for the turning point when the slope changes
• Variance explained- the total factors that are retained should be explaining together about 60% of variance and more
• For any given solution with two or more factors, there exists an
infinite number of alternative orientations of the factors in
multidimensional space
• Simple structure
• Factor loadings are then coordinates marking the position of
the variable in relation to the factor- they therefore change
during rotation
• How much variance factors explain does not change though
• Point of rotation is to change the factor loadings so they fulfil the
criteria of simple structure
Oblique rotation
• Oblimin- minimizes cross-products of loadings you can choose the level of correlation between the factors by
choosing the level of Delta
• Promax- an orthogonal solution is rotated again to allow correlations among factors, the orthogonal loadings are
raised to powers (2,3,6)
• It is not guaranteed that the factors are correlated and although you allow for oblique rotations, if there is little
correlation between factors, the solution will be very similar to orthogonal rotation
16 ITEMS FOR FACTOR ANALYSIS (attitudes towards job- 7-point Likert scale, anchors- “strongly disagree/strongly agree”)
• I have felt uneasy and nervous as a result of my job. • When I am working, I forget everything else around me.
• My job gets to me more than it should. • Time flies when I am working.
• There are lots of times when my job drives me up the wall. • I get carried away when I am working.
• I feel relaxed when I am at work. • It is difficult to detach myself from my job.
• Sometimes when I think of my job I get a tight feeling in my chest. • I am immersed in my work.
• I feel guilty when I take time off from my job. • I feel happy when I am working intensely.
• We have too much work and too little time to do it.
• Working makes it hard for team members to spend time with their family.
• We have enough time for our work.
• Working here leaves little time for other activities.
Find structure
• Exploratory factor analysis not PCA is therefore chosen
• Oblique rotations should be selected due to expected correlation
Sample size and missing data/suitability of the data
• 16 items that should predict 3 factors (advised 3-5)
• Missing data was deleted- missing at random
Randomly split the sample so other half can be used for confirmation of the found structure
Eigenvalue/trace=
%of variance explained
Trace is the total of eigenvalues
which in this case equal to the
number of variables
• Unfortunately some of the communalities are quite low (<0.5), but already the
initial communalities are quite low- you can check that the increase in
extracted communalities is very small when we force extraction of more
factors
• Each factor is well defined, although doesn’t have a proper marker variable
with coefficient higher than 0.8, this might change with rotation
• Factor 1- “There are lots of times when my job drives me up the wall.”
(0.807)
• Anxiety as part of work stress by Parker and DeCotiis’ (1983)
• The correlation between factor 1 and 3 indicated that they are part of the same
underlying construct- work stress
• If we decide that pressure and anxiety are adding up to formative overall measure- work stress
• The items related to having time off are connected with anxiety- they should be removed
and two items from anxiety should be removed as well to reduce the overlap between the
two as much as possible
• The level of anxiety and the level of stress then can be added up to create stress index
• If work stress was reflective- feelings of work pressure and anxiety are just reflections of being stressed-
overlapped between them is actually welcomed