Steps in Conducting Principal Component Analysis

Principal component analysis is normally conducted in a sequence of steps, with somewhat subjective decisions being made at various points. Because this is an introductory treatment of the topic, it will not provide a comprehensive discussion of all options available at each step; instead, specific recommendations will be made, consistent with practices commonly followed in applied research. For a more detailed treatment of principal component analysis and factor analysis, see Kim and Mueller (1978a; 1978b), Rummel (1970), or Stevens (2002).

Step 1: Initial Extraction of the Components

In principal component analysis, the number of components extracted is equal to the number of variables analyzed. ...

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