What is factor analysis in psychology?
Factor analysis is used to identify “factors” that explain a variety of results on different tests. Factor analysis in psychology is most often associated with intelligence research. However, it also has been used to find factors in a broad range of domains such as personality, attitudes, beliefs, etc.
Who created the procedure of factor analysis in psychology?
Spearman
intelligence theories …these performance differences, Spearman devised factor analysis, a statistical technique that examines patterns of individual differences in test scores. He concluded that just two kinds of factors underlie all individual differences in test scores.
What is the factor analysis theory of intelligence?
Charles Spearman developed his two-factor theory of intelligence using factor analysis. L. L. Thurstone, Howard Gardner, and Robert Sternberg also researched the structure of intelligence, and in analyzing their data, concluded that a single underlying factor was influencing the general intelligence of individuals.
Who proposed factor analysis?
psychologist Charles Spearman
Factor analysis was invented nearly 100 years ago by psychologist Charles Spearman, who hypothesized that the enormous variety of tests of mental ability–measures of mathematical skill, vocabulary, other verbal skills, artistic skills, logical reasoning ability, etc.
What is factor analysis in simple terms?
Factor analysis is a way to take a mass of data and shrinking it to a smaller data set that is more manageable and more understandable. A “factor” is a set of observed variables that have similar response patterns; They are associated with a hidden variable (called a confounding variable) that isn’t directly measured.
How do you explain factor analysis?
Factor analysis is a technique that is used to reduce a large number of variables into fewer numbers of factors. This technique extracts maximum common variance from all variables and puts them into a common score. As an index of all variables, we can use this score for further analysis.
How many aspects of intelligence did Guilford mention?
Since each of these dimensions is independent, there are theoretically 150 different components of intelligence. Guilford researched and developed a wide variety of psychometric tests to measure the specific abilities predicted by SI theory.
How does Guilford’s Structure of Intellect ( SI ) theory work?
According to Guilford’s Structure of Intellect (SI) theory, an individual’s performance on intelligence tests can be traced back to the underlying mental abilities or factors of intelligence. SI theory comprises up to 150 different intellectual abilities organized along three dimensions—Operations, Content, and Products.
How is factor analysis used in psychological testing?
Factor analysis reduces the variables… …play in psychological testing (factor analysis involves the extraction of small numbers of independent factors from a large group of intercorrelated measurements). His method of factor analysis was fully presented in The Factors of the Mind (1940).
What did Joy Guilford do for a living?
A leading American exponent of factor analysis for a comprehensive assessment of personality, Guilford constructed for this purpose batteries of tests, or factor inventories. His comprehensive, systematic theory of intellectual abilities, known as the structure of intellect, was outlined in The Nature of Human Intelligence (1967).
Who was the first person to use factor analysis?
Burt’s studies convinced him that intelligence was primarily hereditary in origin, although… A leading American exponent of factor analysis for a comprehensive assessment of personality, Guilford constructed for this purpose batteries of tests, or factor inventories.