Calculates the general factor characteristics: number of flagged Q-sorts, composite reliability, standard errors of factor scores, and comparisons between factors.
qfcharact(loa, flagged, zsc, nfactors, floa, av_rel_coef = 0.8)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.
a data frame of type logical, indicating which Q-sorts are flagged for each factor. Provided manually or automatically using qflag.
a data frame with the z-scores for statements, calculated using qzscores.
number of factors extracted.
a data frame with the factor loadings, calculated using PCA or Centroid factor analysis.
average reliability coefficient (the individual variability of a respondent), estimated by default as 0.8.
Returns a list with three objects:
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).
matrix of correlation coefficients between factors z-scores.
matrix of standard errors of differences (SED).
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.