In the case of the method for a TSFmodel the model parameters are
extracted from the model and the
result is a vector of various fit statistics (see below).
(Calculations are done by the internal function FAmodelFitStats.) Most of these statistics are described in
Wansbeek and Meijer (2000, WM below).
The sample size $N$ is used in the calculation of these statistics.
The default is the number of number of observations, as in WM. That is, the
number of rows in the data matrix, minus one if the data is differenced. Many
authors use $N - 1$, which would be $N-2$
if the data is differenced.
The exact calculations can be determined by examining the code:
print(tsfa:::FAmodelFitStats). The vector of statistics is:
[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]
The information criteria account for rotational freedom.
Some of these goodness of fit statistics should be used with caution, because
they are not yet based on sound statistical theory. Future versions of tsfa
will probably provide improved versions of these goodness-of-fit statistics.
In the case of the default method, which expects a matrix of data with columns
for each indicator series, models are calculated with factanal for
factors up to the Ledermann bound. No rotation is needed, since rotation does
not affect the fit statistics. Values for the saturated model are also
appended to facilitate a sequential comparison.
If factanal does not obtain a satisfactory solution it may produce an
error "unable to optimize from these starting value(s)." This can sometimes be
fixed by increasing the opt, maxit value in the control list.
The result for the default method is a list with elements
[object Object],[object Object]
The largest model can correspond to the saturated model, but will not if the
Ledermann bound is not an integer, or even in the case of an integer bound
but implicit contraints resulting in a Heywood case (see Dijkstra, 1992).
In these situations it might make sense to remove the model
corresponding to the largest integer, and make the last sequential comparison
between the second to largest integer and the saturated solution. The code
does not do this automatically.