Using Pratt's Importance Measures in Confirmatory Factor Analyses
Bibliographic record
Abstract
When running a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), users specify and interpret the pattern (loading) matrix. It has been recommended that the structure coefficients, indicating the factors’ correlation with the observed indicators, should also be reported when the factors are correlated (Graham, Guthrie, & Thompson, 2003; Thompson, 1997). The aims of this article are: (1) to note the structure coefficient should be interpreted with caution if the factors are specified to correlate. Because the structure coefficient is a zero-order correlation, it may be partially or entirely a reflection of factor correlations. This is elucidated by the matrix algebra of the structure coefficients based on the example in Graham et al. (2003). (2) The second aim is to introduce the method of Pratt’s (1987) importance measures to be used in a CFA. The method uses the information in the structure coefficients, along with the pattern coefficients, into unique measures that are not confounded by the factor correlations. These importance measures indicate the proportions of the variation in an observed indicator that are attributable to the factors – an interpretation analogous to the effect size measure of eta-squared. The importance measures can further be transformed to eta correlations, a measure of unique directional correlation of a factor with an observed indicator. This is illustrated with a real data example.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.119 | 0.325 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.009 | 0.012 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.007 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.007 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".