Investigating the Repeatability of the Extracted Factors in Relation to the Type of Rotation Used, and the Level of Random Error: A Simulation Study
Volume 18, Issue 2 (2020), pp. 390–404
Pub. online: 4 August 2022
Type: Research Article
Open Access
Published
4 August 2022
4 August 2022
Abstract
Factor analysis (FA) is the most commonly used pattern recognition methodology in social and health research. A technique that may help to better retrieve true information from FA is the rotation of the information axes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the selection of rotation type affects the repeatability of the patterns derived from FA, under various scenarios of random error introduced, based on simulated data from the Standard Normal distribution. It was observed that when applying promax non - orthogonal rotation, the results were more repeatable as compared to the orthogonal rotation, irrespective of the level of random error introduced in the model.