Author(s)

Naoto Yamashita

Department of Sociology, Kansai University, Osaka, Japan.

In factor analysis, a factor loading matrix is often rotated to a simple target matrix for its simplicity. For the purpose, Procrustes rotation minimizes the discrepancy between the target and rotated loadings using two types of approximation: 1) approximate the zeros in the target by the non-zeros in the loadings, and 2) approximate the non-zeros in the target by the non-zeros in the loadings. The central issue of Procrustes rotation considered in the article is that it equally treats the two types of approximation, while the former is more important for simplifying the loading matrix. Furthermore, a well-known issue of Simplimax is the computational inefficiency in estimating the sparse target matrix, which yields a considerable number of local minima. The research proposes a new rotation procedure that consists of the following two stages. The first stage estimates sparse target matrix with lesser computational cost by regularization technique. In the second stage, a loading matrix is rotated to the target, emphasizing on the approximation of non-zeros to zeros in the target by least squares criterion with generalized weighing that is newly proposed by the study. The simulation study and real data examples revealed that the proposed method surely simplifies loading matrices.

Factor Rotation, Procrustes Rotation, Simplicity, Alternating Least Squares

Yamashita, N. (2023) Two-Stage Procrustes Rotation with Sparse Target Matrix and Least Squares Criterion with Regularization and Generalized Weighting. Open Journal of Statistics, 13, 264-284. doi: 10.4236/ojs.2023.132014.