qfcharact: Q methodology: factor characteristics

Description

Calculates the general factor characteristics: number of flagged Q-sorts, composite reliability, standard errors of factor scores, and comparisons between factors.

Usage

qfcharact(loa, flagged, zsc, nfactors, floa, av_rel_coef = 0.8)

Arguments

loa

a matrix or a data frame containing raw data, with statements as rows, Q-sorts as columns, and the scores of the columns in the distribution in each cell.

flagged

a data frame of type logical, indicating which Q-sorts are flagged for each factor. Provided manually or automatically using qflag.

zsc

a data frame with the z-scores for statements, calculated using qzscores.

nfactors

number of factors extracted.

floa

a data frame with the factor loadings, calculated using PCA or Centroid factor analysis.

av_rel_coef

average reliability coefficient (the individual variability of a respondent), estimated by default as 0.8.

Value

Returns a list with three objects:
characteristics
data frame with the following values for each factor:
- "av_rel_coef": average reliability coefficient.
"nload": number of loading Q-sorts. "eigenvals": eigenvalues. "expl_var": percentage of explained variance. "reliability": composite reliability. "se_fscores": standard error of factor scores (SE).

item

cor_zsc
sd_dif

References

Brown, S. R., 1980 Political subjectivity: Applications of Q methodology in political science, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

See further references on the methodology in qmethod-package.