[R] Can R do specific factor analysis?

[Ista Zahn]

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 7:00 PM, Tiger Guo <tigerguouofa at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
>
> Can R do factor analysis using eigenvalue greater than one to automatically
> determine the number
> of factors to extract?

You could write code automate this, but it's easy enough to look at
the scree plot and use that as to identify the number of factors that
meet this criterion.

>
> I am afraid that R cannot provide the function we want.

Unlikely! R is also a programing language, so it if the function you
want doesn't exist yet you can write it yourself.

But I can use R to
> write a function to do the specific factor analysis. Because the functions
> needed for
> developing the factor analysis is provided by R, it should be easy to write
> the factor analysis.

Yes, I'm confident you will be able to do the analysis in R,
although... I'm not sure exactly what it is that you want to do.

>
> I appreciate if someone can give me some comment about the specific factor
> analysis.

I'm not sure what "specific factor analysis" means. I personally use
the fa() function in the psych package. If your concern is with
determining the number of factors to extract, you may be interested in
the fa.parallel function in the same package.

-Ista

>
> Thanks.
>
>
> Gencheng Guo
>
> ECE, University of Alberta,
> Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
>
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>
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-- 
Ista Zahn
Graduate student
University of Rochester
Department of Clinical and Social Psychology
http://yourpsyche.org