A 4-Module Online Workshop

Are you ready to tackle multivariate statistics, but find yourself overwhelmed?

When you’re working with many correlated variables, they get too unwieldy to use individually. But all of them are important to measure.

Whether or not these variables are ‘supposed’ to be correlated, there are ways of combining these variables while extracting the most possible information they contain.

And it’s not as simple as averaging them. You lose a lot with a simple approach like that.

Fortunately, there are ways to reduce multiple variables into fewer so your data is easier to analyze. You can do this by using principal component analysis or factor analysis.

But these techniques require many decisions:

• Which variables matter — and which don’t?
• How many subscales are you really seeing?
• How many variables are on each subscale? Which go to which?
• Which rotation technique should I use? (Wait, what is rotation?!)

Making these choices can be as much art as science… but if you’re not sure of your approach, it can be paralyzing.

Ready to gain confidence in variable reduction?

In this four-module, online workshop, we’ll cover:

• The theoretical and practical differences between principal component analysis and exploratory factor analysis and when to use each.
• The steps and decisions you need to make in PCA and EFA and how to make solid, confident choices about factors to retain, interpretation of loadings, rotation methods, and more.
• How to use PCA and EFA for dimension reduction and how to create reliable scale or sub-scale scores.
• How these analyses fit into the wider context of scale development and reliability.

Who Is This Workshop For?

This workshop is for you if you:

• Are adept at multiple linear regression and are ready to expand your statistical skills.
• Need to implement exploratory factor analysis and/or principal component analysis, and want to ensure you’re conducting and interpreting your analysis well.
• Have conducted principal component analysis models in the past with help, and are confused by all the conflicting information and rules of thumb you’ve encountered. Now, you’d like to understand it once and for all.
• Are preparing to defend your dissertation in the social sciences and want to thoroughly understand your PCA or EFA, so you can answer the questions.

It is NOT for you if you:

• Are doing research where you have just a few variables and they are all independent.
• Are looking for a training of the theoretical or mathematical underpinnings of PCA and EFA.
• Already run and thoroughly understand principal component analysis and factor analysis.

“The workshop cuts into the heart of what I want: a strong understanding of the tools, to improve productivity, and an excellent coverage of QA/QC.”

— Carl Hollins, Previous workshop participant —

How Does It Work?

This course is a 4-module online workshop.

All lessons and software demonstrations are pre-recorded. At your convenience, watch the video lessons, watch the video software demonstrations, do the exercises, and review the software syntax of your choice to implement the examples in the lessons.

Want support implementing what you’ve learned in your own research? Consider joining Statistically Speaking for full support from your team of mentors. As a Member, you will also receive a discount on this workshop.

Where Do I Access Recordings and Material?

For each of the four modules, you will have a set of training resources and material.

As a participant of the Principal Component Analysis workshop, you can access these for 12 months in our participant-only website.

You’ll have access to this site and all the related materials and resources for ONE FULL YEAR.

Often, our students report they understand the material at a deeper level on a second or third pass. You’ll learn more every time, so take advantage of it!

“As I live outside of the US, I appreciated being able to download videos of modules and watch them in my own time. Detailed code for reproducing analyses in the major software packages was also very helpful.”

— Steve Thomas, Previous workshop participant —

What’s Covered in the Workshop?

Module 1: Principal Component Analysis Overview

We start off introducing you to the concepts, vocabulary, notation, and steps to conducting a Principal Component Analysis.

We specifically will cover:

• The difference between Principal Component and Exploratory Factor Analysis and when to use each
• Initial Extraction of Components, Eigenvalues, Communalities, and Variance explained
• Scree Plots, Loadings, Parallel Analysis for choosing the number of components to retain
• How to interpret all that output
• How to create component scores from the results and what they mean

Module 2: Principal Component Analysis in Detail

In the second module, we dig deeper into the steps, concepts, and interpretation of everything we did in module 1. There is a particular emphasis on:

• What we’re really doing when we create a component
• All the ways of choosing the number of components
• Types of Rotation and how to decide which one to use

Module 3: Exploratory Factor Analysis

In Module 3, we turn our attention to EFA. The steps in EFA are the same as in PCA, but the choices and interpretations are different.

• How EFA differs from PCA theoretically and practically and why it’s important
• Factor Scores and Factor-Based Scores
• Methods of initial extraction and how to choose the best one

Module 4: Data Issues and Assessing Scale Reliability and Validity

In Module 4, we turn to some important issues in PCA and EFA, now that you understand the steps and interpretation.

Here we tackle two important issues. The first is the important data assumptions and requirements for conducting a solid analysis. And some options for what to do when those are not met. The second is how to assess the reliability of a scale that you created using EFA.

• Sample size requirements
• The importance of reverse coding
• Tricky data situations: ordinal and categorical variables, missing data, Likert scale data
• Missing Data
• Scale Reliability
• Calculating Cronbach’s alpha

Sorry, enrollment for this workshop is not currently open.

Please contact us if you have any questions
or get on the waiting list to be notified when it's open again.

“Being able to re-watch the modules later on was very helpful because I was able to pause, go back, and skip around, in order to make sure I was fully understanding the material.”

— Catherine, Previous workshop participant —

Prerequisites

So what kind of background in statistics do you need?

This workshop is for researchers, not statisticians. That being said, it is an Stage 3 (Beyond Linear Models) workshop.

We’re assuming you have solid experience in linear regression and correlation.

If you have questions about whether you’re ready, just email us. We’ll give you our honest opinion. We want you to succeed!

Your Satisfaction Is Guaranteed

We want you to be satisfied. If you participate in a workshop and find you are not satisfied, we will give you a full refund. Just notify us within 30 days of purchasing the program.

FAQs

Q: I haven’t taken a statistics course in years. Will I be able to keep up?

A: As long as you have the suggested prerequisites (a strong understanding of linear regression), you should be fine.

However, you WILL need to spend some time each week, both going over the material and also “getting your hands dirty” with some data. Expect to spend 4-5 hours per week reviewing the material and doing the exercises, and re-running class examples on your own.

You know how this goes: The more time you put in, the deeper your understanding.

Q: What’s your refund policy?

A: We want you to be satisfied. If you participate in a workshop and find you are not satisfied, we will give you a full refund. Just notify us within 30 days of purchasing the program.

Q: Do you offer student discounts?

A: Yes, we do! Current students with a valid ID can register for up to 20% off the standard rate. Click here to receive our student discount on all our workshops: Student Discount List

Q: Things are very busy at work right now, and I’m afraid I won’t have time to keep up. How much time per week does this really take?

A: We’ve worked hard to make sure people can take a workshop in the midst of their normal work life. For longer workshops, we build in a week off partway through the course.

Each module’s lesson contains 90 minutes to 2 hours of videos. You may also want to view our software demonstration videos. We include those for four software programs. You’ll obviously need more time if you watch more than one.

We provide exercises, answers and data sets, so you can practice what you’ve learned each lesson. These will take you a few hours per lesson, maybe up to 3 or so. The exercises aren’t required — you’re not graded. But we’ve gotten feedback that they’re very helpful, as it allows you to practice and figure out what you did and didn’t understand.

In other words, each lesson, there are approximately 2 hours of instruction and about 2-3 hours of practice time.

One reminder: You have access to the workshop website and all materials for a year. You can progress on your schedule.

Q: I’m outside the U.S. Can I still participate?

A: Yes. We have participants in our workshops from many different countries all over the world. You will want a stable internet connection.

Q: Can I pay with Paypal?

A: Yes. When you check out, you can pay directly using our system or paying with Paypal. However, the three-payment option is not available using PayPal.

Have additional questions? We’re here to help! Just email us at support@theanalysisfactor.com.