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VI.—The Estimation of Factor Loadings by the Method of Maximum Likelihood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2014

D. N. Lawley
Affiliation:
Moray House, University of Edinburgh
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Extract

1. When a battery of intelligence tests is administered to a set of persons it is a common practice among psychologists to “explain” the scores obtained in terms of a number of “factors.” Thus if we suppose that there are altogether t tests and that xi, denotes the score of any one person in the ith test, then it is assumed that

where f, g, …, h represent the person's measures in one or more general or group factors, and Si, is the person's specific ability in the ith test. It is further assumed that for a given and supposed infinite population of persons all the factors, specific and otherwise, are distributed normally and independently and that they are standardised, i.e. that their standard deviations are unity.

Type
Proceedings
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1940

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References

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