Bruce Weaver <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>... > Neil wrote: > > ... Q-Sort Analysis / Q-Methodology, (a type of Factor > > Analysis), does someone know what the "Q" actually stands for? > > ... > > I initially thought Neil was talking about "Q-mode factor > analysis", as did some other respondents. > ------------------------------------------------------ > > But I don't think this is what Neil was talking about. The > following is from David Clark-Carter's book (reference given > below), in a section called "Techniques to Measure Meaning" > (p. 97): > > "Q-methodology is an approach to research which was devised > by Stephenson (1953). It requires participants or judges to > rate statements or other elements on a given dimension or on > a given basis. One technique which Q-methodology employs is > getting participants to perform Q-sorts.
Thanks, Bruce. That clarifies some of my memories. I will not proceed to further muddle the question. When I was an undergraduate long ago, just basically running jobs and writing code for statistical work, I was involved in some research in which Q-methodology (Q-sorts) were used to collect data from respondents. However, the researcher then used Q-mode factor analysis as a way to cluster the respondents (NOT the items). And, as Bruce discussed, negative loadings were problemmatic and generally these people were put into their own cluster -- they liked what some other group disliked. As Bruce clearly points out, Q-sorts and Q-mode factor analysis are two different things. But there were at least some researchers who were combining them. The projects I worked on were contract consulting work, so I can't give an academic cite. I don't remember what "Q" stood for in "Q-sort" either. . . ================================================================ This list will soon be replaced by the new list EDSTAT-L at Penn State. Please subscribe to the new list using the web interface at http://lists.psu.edu/archives/edstat-l.html. ================================================================
