Dear Tips Friends:
Let me start by saying that I am a relative statistical analysis moron.
That's not to say that I am a total moron...but beyond basic stats that you'd
get in the highest undergrad course, I'm mostly lost.
I'm not proud of it, but there you have it.
{Let me pass the blame onto my last stats instructor in grad school. Up to that
point, I thought I really "got" it....then it got all undone...that's another
story.}
Right now, the story is this:
I have a dichotomous instrument with 21 items. I'd like to know if any of the
items hang together. I have two hypotheses in mind as to how they "might"
logically cluster, but that doesn't mean that either is correct--they are just
best educated suggestions of what could be.
So, here is the question: apparently I have determined that factor analysis for
true/false or yes/no or forced choice between two items data is just not
meaningful. These types of data violate the two main underlying assumptions of
factor analysis, including continuous data, rather than discrete.
Since some of you all seem very well-versed in stats I am hoping some one of
you has some good advice for me, that I will be able to understand. Sigh. There
is much online but I don't get it :( I mean, I get that I can't do factor
analysis and why I can't do it; but when the explanations go into other
domains, then I get lost.
Annette
Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D.
Professor, Psychological Sciences
University of San Diego
5998 Alcala Park
San Diego, CA 92110
tay...@sandiego.edu<mailto:tay...@sandiego.edu>
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