IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/somere/v2y1973i2p191-212.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Use of Factor Analysis in the Construction of Linear Composites in Social Research

Author

Listed:
  • Duane F. Alwin

    (Department of Sociology Washington State University)

Abstract

This paper discusses the uses of factor analysis in the development of composite indices in social research. A distinction is drawn between "factor-based" scores and factor scores, and some comparisons are made between the two general approaches. After reviewing the methods of factor score estimation in some detail, an empirical example is presented which casts doubt on the efficacy of factor score estimation procedures, and favors the continued use of factor-based scores by social researchers.

Suggested Citation

  • Duane F. Alwin, 1973. "The Use of Factor Analysis in the Construction of Linear Composites in Social Research," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 2(2), pages 191-212, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:somere:v:2:y:1973:i:2:p:191-212
    DOI: 10.1177/004912417300200202
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/004912417300200202
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/004912417300200202?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chester Harris, 1967. "On factors and factor scores," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 32(4), pages 363-379, December.
    2. Henry Kaiser, 1962. "Formulas for component scores," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 27(1), pages 83-87, March.
    3. Roderick McDonald & E. Burr, 1967. "A comparison of four methods of constructing factor scores," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 32(4), pages 381-401, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Florian Kaufmann, 2007. "Emigrant or Sojourner? Migration Intensity and Its Determinants," Working Papers wp154, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Roderick McDonald, 1986. "Describing the elephant: Structure and function in multivariate data," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 51(4), pages 513-534, December.
    2. Peter Schönemann, 1971. "The minimum average correlation between equivalent sets of uncorrelated factors," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 36(1), pages 21-30, March.
    3. Wim Krijnen, 2002. "On the construction of all factors of the model for factor analysis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 67(1), pages 161-172, March.
    4. Willem E. Saris & Marius de Pijper & Jan Mulder, 1978. "Optimal Procedures for Estimation of Factor Scores," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 7(1), pages 85-106, August.
    5. Ruggeri, Mirella & Greenfield, Thomas K., 1995. "The Italian version of the service satisfaction scale (SSS-30) adapted for community-based psychiatric patients: Development, factor analysis and application," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 191-202.
    6. Wu, Jianmin & Bentler, Peter M., 2013. "Limited information estimation in binary factor analysis: A review and extension," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 392-403.
    7. Charles E. Susmilch & Weldon T. Johnson, 1975. "Factor Scores for Constructing Linear Composites," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 4(2), pages 166-188, November.
    8. James Steiger, 1979. "Factor indeterminacy in the 1930's and the 1970's some interesting parallels," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 44(2), pages 157-167, June.
    9. Roderick McDonald, 2011. "Measuring Latent Quantities," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 76(4), pages 511-536, October.
    10. Bruce Clemens & Charles E. Bamford & Thomas J. Douglas, 2008. "Choosing strategic responses to address emerging environmental regulations: size, perceived influence and uncertainty," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(8), pages 493-511, December.
    11. Paul Ningaye & Tiomela Alexi & Takoutio Virginie, 2013. "Multi-Poverty in Cameroon: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(1), pages 159-181, August.
    12. Drechsler Jörg & Ronning Gerd & Bleninger Philipp, 2014. "Disclosure Risk from Factor Scores," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 30(1), pages 107-122, March.
    13. Ekkart Zimmermann, 1976. "Factor analyses of conflicts within and between nations: A critical evaluation," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 267-296, December.
    14. Shelby Haberman, 2006. "Bias in Estimation of Misclassification Rates," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 71(2), pages 387-394, June.
    15. Peter Schönemann & Ming-Mei Wang, 1972. "Some new results on factor indeterminacy," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 37(1), pages 61-91, March.
    16. Gerd Ronning & Philipp Bleninger & Jörg Drechsler & Christopher Gürke, 2010. "Remote Access – Eine Welt ohne Mikrodaten??," IAW Discussion Papers 66, Institut für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung (IAW).
    17. Wim Krijnen & Theo Dijkstra & Richard Gill, 1998. "Conditions for factor (in)determinacy in factor analysis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 359-367, December.
    18. Gerd Ronning & Phlipp Bleninger, 2011. "Disclosure Risk from Interactions and Saturated Models in Remote Access," IAW Discussion Papers 73, Institut für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung (IAW).
    19. Anders Skrondal & Petter Laake, 2001. "Regression among factor scores," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 66(4), pages 563-575, December.
    20. Sébastien Loisel & Yoshio Takane, 2019. "Comparisons among several methods for handling missing data in principal component analysis (PCA)," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 13(2), pages 495-518, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:somere:v:2:y:1973:i:2:p:191-212. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.