One of my graduate students and I had similar questions. We wrote this overview of exploratory factor analysis and PCA to clarify many confusing issues around PCA and EFA.
Hope they are useful,
Jason
(Both are published in Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, http://pareonline.net/:)
http://pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v=9&n=11
http://pareonline.net/pdf/v10n7.pdf
*--------
Jason W. Osborne, Ph.D.
Director of Graduate Programs
PI -- IMPACT evaluation
Associate Professor of Educational Psychology
Office: Poe 602
Phone: (919) 244-3538 (cell)
Fax: (919) 513-1687
email: mailto:[log in to unmask]
My Web page: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jwosbor2/home.html
Educational Psychology Program web page: http://ced.ncsu.edu/ci/ed_psych.html
IMPACT web page: http://ced.ncsu.edu/impact/
Mailing Address:
Curriculum and Instruction,
Poe Hall 602, Campus Box 7801
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC, 27695-7801
>>> Madan Kundu <[log in to unmask]> 11/14/05 1:40 AM >>>
hi,
I was recently asked by the question "What is the difference between Prinicipal component analysis and Factor analysis" in an job interview. I know the analysis of both these multivariate techniques in detail but I have no clear cut idea about its difference. I know that both the "Prinicipal component analysis" and "Factor analysis" target to reduce the variance covariance (or correlation ) structure of a set of variables. But further........?
Can anobody help to make me understand the difference between these two techniques?
Any suggestion in this regard is appreciated.
With regards,
Madan
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