Re: Doing EFA after multiple imputation

Posted by Bruce Weaver on Jul 16, 2015; 5:38pm
URL: http://spssx-discussion.165.s1.nabble.com/Doing-EFA-after-multiple-imputation-tp5730158p5730160.html

Re your first point, even if you did add random error residuals, would you do it multiple times?  If you only did it once, you'd still have single imputation, not multiple imputation.  Also, the FACTOR procedure is not in the list of "procedures that support pooling" (http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSLVMB_21.0.0/com.ibm.spss.statistics.help/mi_analysis.htm), so you'd still not be much further ahead.  

Re your second point, as the next post in the thread you linked points out, one of the obstacles to using the EM covariances as input to FACTOR is that the MVA command does not have a MATRIX subcommand, so it does not allow you to generate directly the matrix data set that FACTOR wants as input.  I wrote a couple macros that can be used (with the MVA command sandwiched between them) to generate matrix datasets containing the EM covariances and correlations that can be used as input for FACTOR (and RELIABILITY).  See this article for details & examples:

  http://tqmp.org/RegularArticles/vol10-2/p143/p143.pdf

The macro definitions and other supplementary materials can be downloaded here:

  https://sites.google.com/a/lakeheadu.ca/bweaver/Home/statistics/spss/my-spss-page/emcorr

HTH.

ziweiguan wrote

After multiple imputation, one get a number of data sets, and EFA is not such a procedure to use multiple data sets and finally give pooled estimates.
I found a very interesting discussion in 2013,
http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/Multiple-Imputation-tp4994372p5722178.html
where Bruce cited the Graham 2009 paper: "The EM covariance matrix is also an excellent basis for exploratory factor analysis with missing data."

I have two questions:
1. SPSS missing data analysis - EM has an option: save completed data.
Graham pointed out that the single imputed data set based on EM algorithm is not recommended
unless random error residuals are added.

Is there a good way to add the random error residuals?

2. How to use the EM covariance matrix for EFA?
I cannot find an option that I can input the matrix to do EFA, but I guess there must be a way.
Can anyone give me some hints?

Thanks!