Dear Allstat,
I am currently in the process of designing a questionnaire based study
and desperately need some advice about what type of statistics to use.
The questionnaire will ask a number of individuals (i), to rate a number
of dimensions (j), on a number of different behaviours (k). The aim of
the study is to discover a) which behaviours are seen as more similar
(i.e. which group together), and b) which dimensions differentiate
between these behaviours (so that we could say behaviour 1 is high on
dimension 1, but low on dimension 2 etc). Since I am asking about
perceptions of behaviours there will be individual variation in
responses, however, I am more interested in getting a general picture of
how behaviours relate to one another than I am about investigating
individual differences. Not being a statistician myself, I am unsure of
the best way to statistically analyse this type of 3 mode data, so was
after some advice. So far I have uncovered two options.
1) I could use cluster analysis to cluster a matrix of behaviour x
dimensions, where each entry would have to be a summary measure of all
the individuals in the sample. According to Everitt, Landau & Leese
(2004, Cluster Analysis) one way to do this would be to use
Mahalanobis's distance as a summary measure, as this would take into
account some of the variability between individuals (more so than a mean
score, for example).
2) I could use a form of three-way component analysis (e.g. Kiers
& Mechelen, 2001, Psychological Methods, 6, 84-110), perhaps 3MPCA
(three mode factor analysis), which as far as I understand could come up
with factor solutions for all three modes, and represent their
interactions
I was hoping that some of you might be able to shed light of which one
of these would be more appropriate to my study. I would welcome any
suggestions, or references for further reading (especially introductory
chapters) in this area. Please reply to me at [log in to unmask]
Many thanks,
Rosie McEachan
Rosie McEachan
Research Student
Institute of Psychological Sciences
University of Leeds
Tel: 0113 343 6692
(internal ext 36692)
Fax: 0113 343 5749
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