Exploratory Factor Analysis with SAS

Example Syntax and Output

Let’s review the syntax to produce an EFA on the engineering data using oblimin rotation. We will use iterated PAF extraction, although any method would provide similar results. (See Chapter 2.) We selected oblimin rotation for this data because the factors are known to be correlated. The syntax to run this analysis is presented below.[8]

proc factor data = engdata  nfactors = 2  method = PRINIT  priors = SMC
      rotate = OBLIMIN;
   var EngProb: INTERESTeng: ;
run;

This syntax produces a series of results—within which we can see the four factor loading matrices (discussed above) of particular interest to us. These matrices are presented in Figure 4.2 Factor loading matrices output. Notice how the coefficients in the unrotated ...