The purpose of this study was to replicate the study conducted by Potter, Sagraves, and McDonald to determine whether their recommended analysis could separate criterion variables into similar factors that were stable from year to year and from school to school. The replication samples consisted of all students attending Louisiana State University…

The basic considerations that should be examined in performing an exploratory descriptive factor analysis of a communication concept are described in this paper. Factor analysis is a statistical technique designed to identify the fundamental, common elements within a pool of variables. For example, imagine asking students twenty questions all…

In 2001, the U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee approved a consent decree to end the federal oversight of the Tennessee higher education integration plan. The consent decree required an examination of the work climates of higher education campuses, and a Web-based survey was developed to measure campus climate in Tennessee. Participation was…

Sex-linked differences were examined with respect to: (1) Kansas State University undergraduates' recollection of single experiences that they considered most important in their moral development; and (2) undergraduates' perceptions of the moral lessons learned as a result of those experiences. Although the 517 (244 males and 273 females) subjects…

This paper illustrates the transformation of a raw data matrix into a matrix of associations, and then into a factor matrix. Factor analysis attempts to distill the most important relationships among a set of variables, thereby permitting some theoretical simplification. In this heuristic data, a correlation matrix was derived to display…

This paper conceptually explains higher-order factor analysis and methods for interpretation. A review of first-order factor analysis is presented that provides the foundation for the summary of second-order factor analysis. Higher order factors are derived from the correlations between the lower-level factors. An example study is provided to make…

Ego development data were collected from two groups of subjects. One group consisted of 175 students from junior high, senior high, and college. The second group was comprised of 136 adults who were either teachers and administrators of a medium-sized public school system, or long-time employees of a large chemical manufacturing corporation.…

Limitations of the confirmatory factor analysis conducted by H. W. Marsh to demonstrate the multidimensionality of a rating form to assess student evaluation of teaching effectiveness are discussed. A secondary analysis suggests that dimensionality is not stable across solutions and a global factor can be retrieved. (SLD)

To investigate degree of variation in factor structures produced using different factor analytic techniques, two large data sets were analyzed using four factor analytic approaches (theoretical conventional, theoretical conventional-confirmatory, modified confirmatory, and pure confirmatory). Data sets included third through seventh graders and…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factor structure of a Factors Influencing Pursuit of Higher Education (FIPHE) Questionnaire which addresses factors influencing a person's decision to pursue higher education. Researchers used a literature-based, rational factors approach to develop the questionnaire; the three-part study included a…