About This Book
Purpose
This book is designed
to present a modern overview of best practices in exploratory factor
analysis. We present these concepts from an applied, reader-friendly
perspective, guiding you through many different aspects of factor
analysis and presenting evidence-based recommendations about how to
get the most from your analysis (and how to present it to others clearly).
Is This Book for You?
Factor analysis is used
in many disciplines, for many purposes. If you use SAS and also use
factor analysis, this book will help you choose options that are defensible
and help you meet your goals. If you have never used factor analysis
and want to learn, this book is also written for you! We guide you
through concepts and their application gently, using minimal technical
jargon, and we suggest ways to think about the results that reflect
modern practices.
Prerequisites
We wrote this book expecting
readers to have a basic working knowledge of SAS and basic knowledge
of statistics fundamentals. We do not assume
you can do matrix algebra in your sleep, that you already know what
an eigenvalue is, or that you know the binary language of moisture
vaporators. We do, however, assume that most readers understand basic
data manipulation in SAS, the DATA step, and at least a few procedures
(e.g., MEANS, SORT, FREQ).
Scope of This Book
This book is designed
to cover everything you need to know about exploratory factor analysis,
and some closely related constructs such as reliability and replicability.
Our goal was to stay focused on this one topic, as it is complex
and confusing, with many options and steps. We chose, therefore,
not to cover related topics like confirmatory factor analysis, construction
and validation of scales, latent variable modeling such as structural
equation modeling, and other measurement methodologies (for example,
item response theory or Rasch measurement).
About the Examples
Software Used to Develop the Book's Content
SAS 9.4 was used for
this book.
Example Code and Data
To access the book’s
example code and data, visit the authors’ page at
http://support.sas.com/publishing/authors.
Select the name of one of the authors. Then, look for the book cover,
and select Example Code and Data.
If you are unable to
access the code through the website, send email to
[email protected].
This book is compatible with SAS
® University
Edition.
Output and Graphics Used in This Book
All output in this book
was generated using SAS.
Exercise Solutions
Exercises are presented
at the end of each chapter. The data sets that are used for these
exercises can be found on the SAS Press book website, along with syntax
from the chapter that can be helpful in solving the exercises. All
data, syntax, and promised reader-oriented materials can also be found
on Jason Osborne’s website at
http://jwosborne.com
Additional Resources
Although this book illustrates
many analyses regularly performed in businesses across industries,
questions specific to your aims and issues might arise. To fully support
you, SAS Institute and SAS Press offer you the following help resources:
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For questions about topics covered
in this book, contact the author through SAS Press:
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Send questions by email to
[email protected];
include the book title in your correspondence.
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SAS Institute maintains a comprehensive
website with up-to-date information. One page that is particularly
useful to both the novice and the seasoned SAS user is the Knowledge
Base. Search for relevant notes in the “Samples and SAS Notes”
section of the Knowledge Base at
http://support.sas.com/resources.
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Registered SAS users or their organizations
can access SAS Customer Support at http://support.sas.com. Here you
can pose specific questions to SAS Customer Support; under Support,
click Submit a Problem. You will need to provide an email address
to which replies can be sent, identify your organization, and provide
a customer site number or license information. This information can
be found in your SAS logs.
Keep in Touch
We look forward to hearing from you. We invite questions, comments, and concerns.
If you want to contact us about a specific book, please include the book title in
your correspondence.
To Contact the Author through SAS Press
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Via the Web: http://support.sas.com/author_feedback
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