A Note on Exploratory Item Factor Analysis by Singular Value Decomposition

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Zhang, Haoran, Chen, Yunxiao, Li, Xiaoou
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2019
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author Zhang, Haoran
Chen, Yunxiao
Li, Xiaoou
author_facet Zhang, Haoran
Chen, Yunxiao
Li, Xiaoou
contents We revisit a singular value decomposition (SVD) algorithm given in Chen et al. (2019b) for exploratory Item Factor Analysis (IFA). This algorithm estimates a multidimensional IFA model by SVD and was used to obtain a starting point for joint maximum likelihood estimation in Chen et al. (2019b). Thanks to the analytic and computational properties of SVD, this algorithm guarantees a unique solution and has computational advantage over other exploratory IFA methods. Its computational advantage becomes significant when the numbers of respondents, items, and factors are all large. This algorithm can be viewed as a generalization of principal component analysis (PCA) to binary data. In this note, we provide the statistical underpinning of the algorithm. In particular, we show its statistical consistency under the same double asymptotic setting as in Chen et al. (2019b). We also demonstrate how this algorithm provides a scree plot for investigating the number of factors and provide its asymptotic theory. Further extensions of the algorithm are discussed. Finally, simulation studies suggest that the algorithm has good finite sample performance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_1907_08713
institution arXiv
publishDate 2019
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Note on Exploratory Item Factor Analysis by Singular Value Decomposition
Zhang, Haoran
Chen, Yunxiao
Li, Xiaoou
Methodology
We revisit a singular value decomposition (SVD) algorithm given in Chen et al. (2019b) for exploratory Item Factor Analysis (IFA). This algorithm estimates a multidimensional IFA model by SVD and was used to obtain a starting point for joint maximum likelihood estimation in Chen et al. (2019b). Thanks to the analytic and computational properties of SVD, this algorithm guarantees a unique solution and has computational advantage over other exploratory IFA methods. Its computational advantage becomes significant when the numbers of respondents, items, and factors are all large. This algorithm can be viewed as a generalization of principal component analysis (PCA) to binary data. In this note, we provide the statistical underpinning of the algorithm. In particular, we show its statistical consistency under the same double asymptotic setting as in Chen et al. (2019b). We also demonstrate how this algorithm provides a scree plot for investigating the number of factors and provide its asymptotic theory. Further extensions of the algorithm are discussed. Finally, simulation studies suggest that the algorithm has good finite sample performance.
title A Note on Exploratory Item Factor Analysis by Singular Value Decomposition
topic Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.08713