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Multivariate Analysis: Common Factor Analysis

Method Tab

You can use the Method tab to set options in the analysis. (See Figure 27.4.) Each UI control in the tab corresponds to an option in the FACTOR procedure. The Method tab contains the following UI controls:

Factoring method


specifies the method used to extract factors or specifies a component analysis. This list corresponds to the METHOD= option in the PROC FACTOR statement.

Compute factors from


specifies whether the factors are computed for the correlation matrix or the covariance matrix. This box corresponds to the COV option in the PROC PRINCOMP statement. Note:Some methods require a correlation matrix.

Number of Factors


specifies the number of factors that are retained. The number of factors retained is determined by the minimum number that satisfies the next three criteria.

Maximum number


specifies how many factors to compute. This list corresponds to the N= option in the PROC FACTOR statement. You can type into the Maximum number field; if you want five factors, you can enter 5 even though 5 is not an option in the list.

Proportion of variance


specifies the proportion of common variance in the retained factors. This value is in the range . The box corresponds to the PROPORTION= option in the PROC FACTOR statement.

Minimum eigenvalue


specifies the smallest eigenvalue for which a factor is retained. This box corresponds to the MINEIGEN= option in the PROC FACTOR statement.

Prior estimates


specifies a method for computing prior communality estimates. This list corresponds to the PRIORS= option in the PROC FACTOR statement. The default method for the principal factor method is to set all priors equal to 1. This results in a principal component analysis. If you want a principal factor analysis, you should select a different method for estimating the prior communalities, as illustrated in the section Example: Reduce Dimensionality through Common Factor Analysis.

Heywood Conditions


specifies how the factor analysis behaves if a communality is greater than 1. The section "Heywood Cases and Other Anomalies about Communality Estimates" in the documentation for the FACTOR procedure describes why this situation might occur.

Do not allow communalities greater than one


specifies that an analysis should stop processing if it encounters a communality greater than one.

Set any communality greater than one to one


specifies that an analysis should set any communality greater than one to one, and then continue. This option corresponds to the HEYWOOD option in the PROC FACTOR statement.

Allow communalities greater than one


specifies that an analysis should allow any communality. This option corresponds to the ULTRAHEYWOOD option in the PROC FACTOR statement.

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