Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-fr72s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-18T13:59:24.001Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Rationale for an “Oblimax” Method of Transformation in Factor Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

D. R. Saunders
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Factorial transformation is viewed as an estimation problem in which the usual assumption of homogeneously distributed error cannot be applied, but may be replaced by a principle of maximum kurtosis. This leads to quartimax in the orthogonal case, and to “oblimax” in the oblique case. Oblimax is readily programmable, and typically provides results similar to those of subjective rotation. However, oblimax may encounter special difficulty in data which do not determine a simple structure, or which have been imprecisely factored.

Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , September 1961 , pp. 317 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © 1961 The Psychometric Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

The Managing Editor has substituted the word “transformation” for the word “rotation” in the title and throughout this paper, on the grounds that “oblique rotation” is a self-contradictory term, the use of which need not be perpetuated.

†

This paper is primarily a condensation of material that first appeared in ETS Research Bulletins 53-10 and 54-31, both long out of print. In this treatment the principle of maximum kurtosis receives increased emphasis, and the special case for equation (10) is recognized. The writer is indebted to his former colleagues, Mr. Charles Pinzka and Dr. Ledyard Tucker, for invaluable assistance in achieving a straightforward and general derivation of equation (10).

References

Carroll, J. B. An analytical solution for approximating simple structure in factor analysis. Psychometrika, 1953, 18, 23–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickman, K. W. KSL 1.90 Oblimax. Behav. Sci., 1959, 4, 339–339.Google Scholar
Ferguson, G. A. The concept of parsimony in factor analysis. Psychometrika, 1954, 19, 281–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaiser, H. F. Note on Carroll's analytic simple structure. Psychometrika, 1956, 21, 89–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neuhaus, J. O. and Wrigley, C. F. The quartimax method: An analytical approach to orthogonal simple structure. Brit. J. statist. Psychol., 1954, 7, 81–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nickles, M. R. and Keenan, T. A. Minimal IBM 650 program for the oblimax rotation to simple structure. Behav. Sci., 1960, 5, 100–100.Google Scholar
Rietz, H. L. and Crathorne, A. R. College algebra (3rd ed.), New York: Holt, 1937.Google Scholar
Saunders, D. R. An analytical method for rotation to orthogonal simple structure. Amer. Psychologist, 1953, 8, 428–428.Google Scholar
Thurstone, L. L. Multiple-factor analysis, Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1947.Google Scholar