Stats II Tutoring

EDR-8202: Statistics II

Week 6 Assignment Worksheet: Conduct Exploratory Factor Analysis

Scenario

The University of Sussex constantly seeks to employ the best people possible as lecturers. The University wanted to revise the Teaching of Statistics for Scientific Experiments’ (TOSSE) Questionnaire, which is based on Bland’s Theory that says that good research methods lecturers should have:

1. A profound love of statistics

2. An enthusiasm for experimental design

3. A love of teaching

4. A completed absence of normal interpersonal skills

These characteristics should be related (i.e., correlated). The University revised this questionnaire to become the “Teaching of Statistics for Scientific Experiments – Revised” (TOSSE–R).

They gave this questionnaire to 239 research methods lecturers around the world to see if it supported Bland’s Theory. The data are in TOSSE-°©‐R.sav.

1. Based on the readings, what is the main purpose of factor analysis?

2. What is the difference between exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis?

3. What is the appropriate value for a factor loading according to the readings?

4. Conduct a factory analysis (with appropriate rotation) and interpret the factor structure.

5. Present the results of the analysis.

6. How many factors were extracted from the questionnaire?