Binary variable-zero variance PreviousNext
Mplus Discussion > Exploratory Factor Analysis >
Message/Author
 Abe Khademi posted on Saturday, March 14, 2015 - 5:58 pm
I'm running a q-technique EFA where the Person x Item matrix is transposed to an Item x Person matrix. The responses are binary (0/1). The problem is that if a person responds all 1's or all 0's to an item, the item gets zero variance and EFA analysis terminates with an error that a variable is not categorical because it is all 1 or all 0.

Can we tell Mplus that all variables have two categories and regard the variable with all 1's or all 0's as binary too? In CFA we use $ to show the number of thresholds. How about EFA? What should we do with a variable with no variance?

Thanks.
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Sunday, March 15, 2015 - 3:03 pm
If you have all zeros or ones in a column of the matrix (so for a certain person), you can't estimate the factor loading.

Maybe instead you want to do LCA. People with all zeros may constitute a separate class and same for the ones; 0's and 1's don't hurt.
 Abe Khademi posted on Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - 6:47 pm
Thanks, Bengt for the explanation and alternative method.
Back to top
Add Your Message Here
Post:
Username: Posting Information:
This is a private posting area. Only registered users and moderators may post messages here.
Password:
Options: Enable HTML code in message
Automatically activate URLs in message
Action: