qindtest: Q Methodology: PCA bootstrap indeterminacy tests

Description

This is a simple test plus solution for the indeterminacy problem (alignment problem) when bootstrapping Principal Components Analysis (PCA) that causes factor order swaps and factor sign swaps.

Usage

qindtest(loa, target, nfactors)

Arguments

loa

data frame with factor loadings from the subsample analysis.

target

data frame with factor loadings from the full sample analysis, excluding qsorts that are not present in the bootstrap step.

nfactors

number of factors extracted.

Value

qindtest

returns a list with three data frames: the factor loadings of the corrected bootstrap step, results from order swap and sign swap tests, and report of errors.

Details

This function tests whether there is any or both of the indeterminacy issues in bootstrapped PCA factor loading values. For testing, it looks at correlation coefficients between the target factor loadings and the bootstrapped factor loadings for each factor.

First, if factor swap is detected (Is the absolute value of diagonal coefficients bigger than non-diagonal coefficients for the same factor?) and it is only between two factors, these are swaped. After, the test is again performed to ensure that there is no need for further swaps. If the test fails, then the original factor loadings are recovered and the failure is reported. If the need for factor swap is detected for 1, 3 or more factors, this is reported and left unresolved. This is because an algorithm to determine which factors should swap with which has not been implemented.

Second, sign swap is tested for (Are all diagonal coefficients positive?). If it is detected, then the sign of factor loadings is shifted. This is not tested again afterwards, for it is given for granted that swaping signs will solve the issue.

References

Zabala, Pascual (2016) Bootstrapping Q Methodology to Improve the Understanding of Human Perspectives. PLoS ONE 11(2): e0148087.

Examples

Run this code

# NOT RUN {
data(lipset)
nf <- 3

# 1. Create target matrix
qm <- qmethod(lipset[[1]], nfactors = nf, rotation = "varimax")

# 2. Resample
qselim <- sample(1:3, 2, replace = FALSE) ##q sorts to eliminate
subdata <- lipset[[1]][ , -qselim]

# 3. Calculate factor loadings with the resample
library(psych)
loa <- as.data.frame(unclass(principal(subdata, 
           nfactors = nf, rotate = "varimax")$loadings))

# 4. Reorder target matrix 
target <- as.matrix(as.data.frame(qm[3]))
colnames(target) <- paste0("target_f", 1:nf)
subtarget <- target[c(-qselim),]

# 5. Apply test and solution for indeterminacy issue
qindt <- qindtest(loa, subtarget, nf)
qindt
# }

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