This example starts with the premise that you do not have the original observational data, but instead have the published correlations of the variables. In this instance, you can read the correlations into SPSS Statistics. You can conduct a factor analysis as if you had the raw data, except that you are not able to calculate factor scores (or component scores, if you were conducting PCA). Note that you can perform Factor Analysis with a flat file of observations, much as we showed with the PCA example that begins with a flat file of observations.
Suppose that the researcher has administered six psychological tests to 112 respondents. The variables are as follows:
- General: A nonverbal measure of general intelligence
- Picture: A picture completion test
- Blocks: A block design test
- Maze: A maze test
- Reading: A reading comprehension test
- Vocab: A vocabulary...
