THREE-WAY FACTOR ANALYSIS OF A MULTITRAIT-MULTIMETHOD MATRIX

摘要

Analytical procedures, developed from Tucker's model for the analysis of three-way matrices of data, were applied to a multitraitmultimethod correlation matrix of rating-scale data from the Kelly and Fiske study of VA trainees. Ratings of the trainees by the assessment staff, by the trainees' teammates during the assessment period, and self-ratings by the trainees on 15 of the original 22 variables were analyzed for 124 male trainees.nApplication of Tucker's method to the data yielded four substantial trait factors which corresponded to four recurrent factors found previously by Fiske who matched factors across separate monomethod analyses of the same data. Fiske's claim for a fifth factor was not clearly substantiated in this analysis. One general method factor accounted for most of the method variance, but two smaller factors, contrasting self-ratings with ratings by others and staff ratings with teammate ratings, were found to be useful in interpreting the results of the factor analysis of the complete multitraitmultimethod matrix.