topic Re: proc factor in SAS Enterprise Guide

proc factor

datalligence — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:18:12 GMT

hi everyone,

can somebody please tell me which is the default correlation used in PROC FACTOR? is it pearson's or spearman's?

thanks,
romakanta

Re: proc factor

datalligence — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 05:01:25 GMT

can someone at SAS answer this?

i know that the correlation type can be specified with proc corr. but in factor analysis, i may have ratio/interval variables for which the pearson correlation is appropriate, or ordinal/rating variables for which the spearman correlation is appropriate.

so which correlation is used as a default when i use proc factor?

Re: proc factor

Cynthia_sas — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 07:12:03 GMT

Hi:
If you need a response quickly, then your best source of help is SAS Technical Support.

To send a question to Tech Support, go to http://support.sas.com/ and in the left-hand navigation pane, click on the link entitled "Submit a Problem".

cynthia

Re: proc factor

1162 — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:14:53 GMT

Also, if you need a quick answer, you could output the correlation matrix from PROC FACTOR and compare it to different methods from PROC CORR to figure out which type of correlation is used.

I would bet pearson's correlation although I couldn't find anything that explicitly says so.