The evaluation of hypotheses, and the ability to learn from critical reflection on experimental and theoretical tests of those hypotheses, is central to an authentic practice of physics. A large part of physics education therefore seeks to help students understand the significance of this kind of reflective practice and to develop the strategies…

Despite advances in common factor analysis, a review of 89 studies published in four selected journals between 1963 and 1976 indicated that behavioral scientists preferred principal components analysis, followed by varimax or orthogonal rotation. Resultant row sums of squares of factor matrices from principal component analyses of real data sets…