THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DIFFICULTY AND FACTOR LOADINGS OF SOME VISUAL-PERCEPTUAL TESTS

WERDELIN, I. & STJERNBERG, G. The relationship between difficulty and factor loadings of some visual-perceptual tests. Scand. J. Psychol. , 1971, 12, 21–28. – The study aimed at investigating whether it is possible to change factor loadings by varying the difficulty and complexity of the same visual-perceptual tests. 171 sixth grade pupils were given 27 tests. Some of these defined reference factors, others were differently difficult versions of four tests from separate parts of the visual-perceptual field. Data were treated by factor analysis, yielding the four factors R, S, N and P. It was found that the more difficult the test the higher its loadings on the S and R factors, and the easier the test the higher its loadings on the N and particularly the P factor.