Factor Analysis on the Characteristics of Occupation
This article is basically ripped off from Field’s Discovering Statistics Using SPSS for Windows with some minor subjective interpretation from me. So if you have access to the book just read it instead of this article. It is really a good book for you who want to learn SPSS and statistics. Highly recommended book
!
Factor analysis was first used in 1904 by Charles Spearman, a Psychologist
from United Kingdom. Spearman used factor analysis in his models of human
intelligence. With factor analysis he developed theory that variety of cognitive test
could all be explained by one single factor which called g factor. Later on Raymond
Cattell, psychologist from US, used factor analysis in most of his research on
intelligence which lead to the development of his theory on Fluid and Crystallized
Intelligence. 16 Personality Factor (16PF) test is also one of Raymond Cattell’s
research results based on factor analysis.
Factor analysis is quiet different to other statistical analysis method. Many
statistical analysis methods are used to investigate the relation between
independent and dependent variables. In contrast, factor analysis is used to study
the patterns of relationship among many dependent variables, with the goal of
discovering something about the nature of independent variables that affect them.
The tricky part is that those independent variables were not measure directly. Thus
answers obtained by factor analysis are necessarily more hypothetical and tentative
than is true when independent variables are observed directly (Darlington, 1997).
Factor analysis in psychology is most often associated with intelligence Read more »
research. Nevertheless, the use of factor analysis can be observed in other domain
of psychology such as personality, attitudes, etc. The trait theorists in psychology
have been used factor analysis to measure personality traits. The Extraversion-
Introversion and the Neuroticism traits by Eysenck and 16 Personality Factor
questionnaires (16 PF) by Cattell are some of the examples of implementation of
Factor Analysis (Field, 2000). Furthermore, factor analysis is used widely in other
social sciences, education, business fields, biological science, etc.
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