Factor Analysis with the Iterated Factor Method and R

factor method that seeks improved estimates of the communality. In the iterated principal factor method, the initial estimates of the communality are used to find new communality estimates from the loadings. The iterated principal factor method is demonstrated on the rootstock data as in the previous posts on factor analysis for consistency and comparison of the various approaches.

The iterated principal factor method is an extension of the principal factor method that seeks improved estimates of the communality. As seen in the previous post on the principal factor method, initial estimates of $$R - \hat{\Psi}$$ or $$S - \hat{\Psi}$$ are found to obtain $$\hat{\Lambda}$$ from which the factors are computed. In the iterated principal factor method, the initial estimates of the communality are used to find new communality estimates from the loadings in $$\hat{\Lambda}$$ with the following:

$$\hat{h}^2_i = \sum^m_{j=1} \hat{\lambda}^2_{ij}$$

The values of $$\hat{h}^2_i$$ are then substituted into the diagonal of $$R - \hat{\Psi}$$ or $$S - \hat{\Psi}$$ and a new value of $$\hat{\Lambda}$$ is found. This iteration continues until the communality estimates converge, though sometimes convergence does not occur. Once the estimates converge, the eigenvalues and eigenvectors are calculated from the iterated $$R - \hat{\Psi}$$ or $$S - \hat{\Psi}$$ matrix to arrive at the factor loadings.

The Iterated Principal Factor Method in R

The iterated principal factor method is demonstrated on the rootstock data as in the previous posts on factor analysis for consistency and comparison of the various approaches. The rootstock data contain four variables representing measurements in different units taken at four and fifteen years growth of six different rootstocks. The data were obtained from the companion FTP site of the book Methods of Multivariate Analysis by Alvin Rencher. The data contains four dependent variables as follows:

• trunk girth at four years (mm $$\times$$ 100)
• extension growth at four years (m)
• trunk girth at 15 years (mm $$\times$$ 100)
• weight of tree above ground at 15 years (lb $$\times$$ 1000)

Load the data and name the columns.

root <- read.table('ROOT.DAT', col.names = c('Tree.Number', 'Trunk.Girth.4.Years', 'Ext.Growth.4.Years', 'Trunk.Girth.15.Years', 'Weight.Above.Ground.15.Years'))


We proceed with the correlation matrix $$R$$ as the variables in the data are not measured commensurately. Using $$R$$ over $$S$$ is generally the preferred approach and is usually the default in most implementations (such as the psych package).

Calculate the correlation matrix.

R <- cor(root[,2:5])


The initial estimates of the communality are found by computing the squared multiple correlation, which in the case of $$R - \hat{\Psi}$$ is equal to the following:

$$\hat{h}^2_i = 1 - \frac{1}{r^{ii}}$$

Where $$r^{ii}$$ is the $$i$$th diagonal element of $$R^{-1}$$.

R.smc <- (1 - 1 / diag(solve(R)))


The estimates then replace the diagonal of $$R$$.

diag(R) <- R.smc


The threshold for convergence of the communality is set to $$0.001$$. This error threshold is also the default in the psych package implementation of the iterated principal factor method. The com.iter object will be used to store the communality iterations.

min.error <- .001
com.iter <- c()


$$\hat{h}^2_i$$ is then found from $$\hat{h}^2_i = \sum^m_{j=1} \hat{\lambda}^2_{ij}$$, which is simply the sum of the diagonal of $$R$$ ($$R$$ will be replaced with $$\hat{\Lambda}$$ in the iteration).

h2 <- sum(diag(R))
error <- h2


The following loop implements the iterated principal factor method using $$R$$ with the estimated communalities found earlier. While our communality estimate remains above the error threshold of $$0.001$$, the loop will continue to calculate new values of $$\hat{\Lambda}$$ by replacing the previous estimates of communality with new ones.

while (error > min.error) {
r.eigen <- eigen(R) # Get the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of R

# The lambda object is updated upon each iteration using new estimates of the communality
lambda <- as.matrix(r.eigen$vectors[,1:2]) %*% diag(sqrt(r.eigen$values[1:2]))

# R - Psi is then found by multiplying the lambda matrix by its transpose
r.mod <- lambda %*% t(lambda)
r.mod.diag <- diag(r.mod) # The diagonal of R - Psi is the new communality estimate

# The sum of the new estimate is taken and compared with the previous estimate. If the
# difference is less than the error threshold the loop stops
h2.new <- sum(r.mod.diag)
error <- abs(h2 - h2.new)

# If the difference between the previous and new estimate is not below the threshold, replace
# the new estimate with the previous
h2 <- h2.new

# Store the iteration value (the sum of the estimate) and replace the diagonal of R with the
# diagonal of R - Psi found previously
com.iter <- append(com.iter, h2.new)
diag(R) <- r.mod.diag
}


We now have the final $$\hat{\Lambda}$$. Find the communality, specific variances and complexity and collect them into a data.frame

h2 <- rowSums(lambda^2)
u2 <- 1 - h2
com <- rowSums(lambda^2)^2 / rowSums(lambda^4)



The proportion of variance explained by the factors is found by:

$$\frac{\theta_j}{tr(R - \hat{\Psi})} = \frac{\theta_j}{\sum^p_{i=1} \theta_i}$$

Where $$\theta_j$$ is the $$j$$th eigenvalue of $$R - \hat{\Psi}$$. The cumulative variance of the factors when factoring $$R$$ is found by:

$$\frac{\sum^p_{i=1} \hat{\lambda}^2_{ij}}{tr(R)} = \frac{\theta_j}{p}$$

Where $$p$$ is the number of variables. Calculate these values and store in a data.frame.

prop.var <- r.eigen$values[1:2] / sum(diag(R)) var.cumulative <- r.eigen$values / 4

factor.var <- data.frame(rbind(round(prop.var[1:2], 2), round(var.cumulative[1:2], 2)))
rownames(factor.var) <- c('Proportion Explained', 'Cumulative Variance')
colnames(factor.var) <- c('Factor 1', 'Factor 2')
factor.var

##                      Factor 1 Factor 2
## Proportion Explained     0.74     0.26
## Cumulative Variance      0.68     0.24


The iterated principal factor method of factor analysis is complete, and we can now print the results!

iter.fa.res <- list(iter.fa.loadings, factor.var)
iter.fa.res

## [[1]]
##   Factor 1 Factor 2   h2    u2  com
## 1    -0.76     0.56 0.89 0.109 1.84
## 2    -0.82     0.46 0.88 0.116 1.57
## 3    -0.88    -0.42 0.94 0.055 1.44
## 4    -0.83    -0.52 0.96 0.042 1.68
##
## [[2]]
##                      Factor 1 Factor 2
## Proportion Explained     0.74     0.26
## Cumulative Variance      0.68     0.24


Interpretation of the factor loadings should be held until the factors are rotated. We will also compare the results of the iterated approach to the principal component method. Let's compare our results with the output of the psych package to verify.

Iterated Principal Factor Method with the psych Package

The function fa() available in the psych package defaults to the iterated approach. We keep the rotate argument set to none for now and the fm argument to pa (principal axis, another term for principal factors).

library(psych)

root.cor.fa <- fa(root[,2:5], nfactors = 2, rotate = 'none', fm = 'pa')
root.cor.fa

## Factor Analysis using method =  pa
## Call: fa(r = root[, 2:5], nfactors = 2, rotate = "none", fm = "pa")
##                               PA1   PA2   h2    u2 com
## Trunk.Girth.4.Years          0.76  0.56 0.89 0.109 1.8
## Ext.Growth.4.Years           0.82  0.46 0.88 0.116 1.6
## Trunk.Girth.15.Years         0.88 -0.42 0.94 0.055 1.4
## Weight.Above.Ground.15.Years 0.83 -0.52 0.96 0.042 1.7
##
##                        PA1  PA2
## Proportion Var        0.68 0.24
## Cumulative Var        0.68 0.92
## Proportion Explained  0.74 0.26
## Cumulative Proportion 0.74 1.00
##
## Mean item complexity =  1.6
## Test of the hypothesis that 2 factors are sufficient.
##
## The degrees of freedom for the null model are  6  and the objective function was  4.19 with Chi Square of  187.92
## The degrees of freedom for the model are -1  and the objective function was  0.06
##
## The root mean square of the residuals (RMSR) is  0.01
## The df corrected root mean square of the residuals is  NA
##
## The harmonic number of observations is  48 with the empirical chi square  0.03  with prob <  NA
## The total number of observations was  48  with Likelihood Chi Square =  2.75  with prob <  NA
##
## Tucker Lewis Index of factoring reliability =  1.128
## Fit based upon off diagonal values = 1
## Measures of factor score adequacy
##                                                    PA1  PA2
## Correlation of (regression) scores with factors   0.99 0.96
## Multiple R square of scores with factors          0.97 0.92
## Minimum correlation of possible factor scores     0.94 0.85


The output matches our results other than an arbitrary scaling of $$-1$$ on the first factor in our calculations (notice this does not affect the communality or other computations as the loadings are squared). We can also see the fa() function had the same iterations as our loop using the com.iter object from earlier.

com.iter

## [1] 3.553558 3.615064 3.645859 3.661351 3.669220 3.673293 3.675480 3.676730
## [9] 3.677517

root.cor.fa$communality.iterations  ## [1] 3.553558 3.615064 3.645859 3.661351 3.669220 3.673293 3.675480 3.676730 ## [9] 3.677517  Rotation of Factors The factors should be rotated so the variables load highly on one factor to better identify the groupings of the variables. Rotation also yields a simple structure of the data which is denoted by the complexity value calculated previously and improves interpretation of the factors. The varimax() function can be used to rotate our computed factor loadings. Varimax rotation is a type of orthogonal rotation, in which the perpendicular axes remain perpendicular and the communality remains the same after rotation. Orthogonal rotations also result in uncorrelated factor loadings which can be useful for interpretation. lambda.v <- varimax(lambda)$loadings
lambda.v

##
##      [,1]   [,2]
## [1,] -0.182  0.926
## [2,] -0.295  0.893
## [3,] -0.931  0.281
## [4,] -0.963  0.177
##
##                 [,1]  [,2]
## Proportion Var 0.478 0.441
## Cumulative Var 0.478 0.919


Otherwise, setting the rotate argument to varimax in the fa() function will perform varimax rotation.

Comparison of Iterated Principal Factors and Principal Component Method

We saw the non-iterated principal factor approach previously, and the principal component method reported similar results; however, factor loadings from principal components loaded slightly higher on their respective variables and represented the more cumulative variance of the original data. Let's see if the iterated method performs any better to the principal component method.

root.cor.fa <- fa(root[,2:5], nfactors = 2, rotate = 'varimax', fm = 'pa')
root.cor.fa

## Factor Analysis using method =  pa
## Call: fa(r = root[, 2:5], nfactors = 2, rotate = "varimax", fm = "pa")
##                               PA1  PA2   h2    u2 com
## Trunk.Girth.4.Years          0.18 0.93 0.89 0.109 1.1
## Ext.Growth.4.Years           0.30 0.89 0.88 0.116 1.2
## Trunk.Girth.15.Years         0.93 0.28 0.94 0.055 1.2
## Weight.Above.Ground.15.Years 0.96 0.18 0.96 0.042 1.1
##
##                        PA1  PA2
## Proportion Var        0.48 0.44
## Cumulative Var        0.48 0.92
## Proportion Explained  0.52 0.48
## Cumulative Proportion 0.52 1.00
##
## Mean item complexity =  1.1
## Test of the hypothesis that 2 factors are sufficient.
##
## The degrees of freedom for the null model are  6  and the objective function was  4.19 with Chi Square of  187.92
## The degrees of freedom for the model are -1  and the objective function was  0.06
##
## The root mean square of the residuals (RMSR) is  0.01
## The df corrected root mean square of the residuals is  NA
##
## The harmonic number of observations is  48 with the empirical chi square  0.03  with prob <  NA
## The total number of observations was  48  with Likelihood Chi Square =  2.75  with prob <  NA
##
## Tucker Lewis Index of factoring reliability =  1.128
## Fit based upon off diagonal values = 1
## Measures of factor score adequacy
##                                                    PA1  PA2
## Correlation of (regression) scores with factors   0.98 0.96
## Multiple R square of scores with factors          0.97 0.93
## Minimum correlation of possible factor scores     0.93 0.86

root.cor.pa <- principal(root[,2:5], nfactors = 2, rotate = 'varimax')
root.cor.pa

## Principal Components Analysis
## Call: principal(r = root[, 2:5], nfactors = 2, rotate = "varimax")
##                               RC1  RC2   h2    u2 com
## Trunk.Girth.4.Years          0.16 0.96 0.95 0.051 1.1
## Ext.Growth.4.Years           0.28 0.93 0.94 0.061 1.2
## Trunk.Girth.15.Years         0.94 0.29 0.97 0.027 1.2
## Weight.Above.Ground.15.Years 0.97 0.19 0.98 0.022 1.1
##
##                        RC1  RC2
## Proportion Var        0.48 0.48
## Cumulative Var        0.48 0.96
## Proportion Explained  0.50 0.50
## Cumulative Proportion 0.50 1.00
##
## Mean item complexity =  1.1
## Test of the hypothesis that 2 components are sufficient.
##
## The root mean square of the residuals (RMSR) is  0.03
##  with the empirical chi square  0.39  with prob <  NA
##
## Fit based upon off diagonal values = 1


Similar to the previous case with the non-iterated method, the principal component approach resulted in factors that loaded higher on their respective variables and represents slightly more cumulative variance of the data. The difference between the methods is rather small, yet one would be inclined to use the principal component method results.

References

Rencher, A. C. (2002). Methods of multivariate analysis. New York: J. Wiley.