Factor analysis by minimizing residuals (minres)

This paper is addressed to the classical problem of estimating factor loadings under the condition that the sum of squares of off-diagonal residuals be minimized. Communalities consistent with this criterion are produced as a by-product. The experimental work included several alternative algorithms before a highly efficient method was developed. The final procedure is illustrated with a numerical example. Some relationships of minres to principal-factor analysis and maximum-likelihood factor estimates are discussed, and several unresolved problems are pointed out.The authors wish to thank the Factor Analysis Work Group (supported, in part, by ONR) for valuable criticisms and suggestions made in the course of a discussion of the present work in April, 1965.     

NOTE ON THE DOUBLE CENTERING OF DICHOTOMIZED MATRICES

A method is described for the double centering of dichotomized score matrices. It is based on a modification of the r _s coefficient of Guilford in which a second set of values, based on the reversed scoring of the original set, is used. A comparison of indices from matrices centered in such a manner, with some coefficients customarily obtained from score matrices, is presented.     

The Development and Evaluation of a Measure of Counselor Effectiveness

The purpose of this research was to construct and evaluate a measure for assessing counselor-trainee effectiveness. An eight-category rating instrument was constructed and two standardized interview situations emphasizing problems commonly encountered by secondary school counselors were developed. The standardized interview situations provided by the use of coached counselees permitted a panel of six trained judges to evaluate via closed-circuit television 30 counselor-trainees under conditions designed to insure comparability and, hence, fair appraisal. Using a definition of reliability as the degree of consistency between judges, the average correlation between ratings given by pairs of independent raters was .50. It was concluded that the rating instrument developed and the techniques employed for its use constituted a usable, realistic measure for assessing the counseling proficiency of counselor-trainees.     

Personality Types and Vocational Choice: A Test of Holland's Theory

In order to test the adequacy of Holland's theory of vocational choice with reference to a broad segment of entering college students, a sample of the freshman class entering the Pennsylvania State University evaluated themselves in terms of the six personality styles of Holland's theory. Relationships between the personality styles and vocational choices were studied for groups of Decided, Tentative, and Undecided students. While several inversions in the data are evident, the data possess sufficient consistency to indicate that the personality identifications these students made in Holland's frame of reference were related to their initial vocational choices.     

Superior Students' Occupational Preferences and Their Fathers' Occupations

The relationship between the occupational preferences of 147 superior students and their fathers' occupations was traced over the 4-year period that the students attended high schools in Wisconsin. Analysis of the data indicated that both male and female superior students tended to state vocational preferences at the professional level early in high school and to maintain this preference throughout. Their occupational preferences were generally at a higher level than those of their fathers. There was no trend away from general preferences for work at a professional level toward naming of specific occupations within that level. The results suggest that theories of vocational development that imply that stages are passed through during later adolescent periods do not apply to the superior student population of this study.     

Saturation of red: A prothetic continuum

A battery of procedures was used to scale the saturation of colors produced by mixtures of red and gray papers. By direct magnitude estimation, the apparent saturation was found to grow as the1.7 power of the percentage of red in the mixture. The power law was confirmed by the cross-modality matching of loudness to saturation. The inverse continuum, paleness, was also scaled. Saturation appears to be a prothetic continuum because the category scale is curved and the subjective size of the jnd increases as saturation increases.     

Memory for the pitch of a tone

Observers attempted to detect the presence of a pitch difference between two successive tones. The percentage of correct judgments was equivalent for tones separated by .95, 4.5, and 8.9 sec. There was a general increase in reports of a pitch difference with increased intertone interval, which is interpreted as arising from hypothesized shifts in the neural locus of the first stimulus during the intertone interval.