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POLYMAT-C: a comprehensive SPSS program for computing the polychoric correlation matrix

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Abstract

We provide a free noncommercial SPSS program that implements procedures for (a) obtaining the polychoric correlation matrix between a set of ordered categorical measures, so that it can be used as input for the SPSS factor analysis (FA) program; (b) testing the null hypothesis of zero population correlation for each element of the matrix by using appropriate simulation procedures; (c) obtaining valid and accurate confidence intervals via bootstrap resampling for those correlations found to be significant; and (d) performing, if necessary, a smoothing procedure that makes the matrix amenable to any FA estimation procedure. For the main purpose (a), the program uses a robust unified procedure that allows four different types of estimates to be obtained at the user’s choice. Overall, we hope the program will be a very useful tool for the applied researcher, not only because it provides an appropriate input matrix for FA, but also because it allows the researcher to carefully check the appropriateness of the matrix for this purpose. The SPSS syntax, a short manual, and data files related to this article are available as Supplemental materials that are available for download with this article.

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Acknowledgments

The research was partially supported by a grant from the Catalan Ministry of Universities, Research and the Information Society (2009SGR1549; 2014SGR73) and by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (PSI2011-22683), with the collaboration of the European Fund for the Development of Regions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain

    Urbano Lorenzo-Seva & Pere J. Ferrando

  2. Departament de Psicologia, Centre de Reçerca en Avalució i Mesura de la Conducta, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Carretera Valls s/n, 43007, Tarragona, Spain

    Urbano Lorenzo-Seva

Authors
  1. Urbano Lorenzo-Seva
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  2. Pere J. Ferrando
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Urbano Lorenzo-Seva.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

ESM 1

(PDF 821 kb)

ESM 2

(SPV 30 kb)

ESM 3

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ESM 4

(SPS 487 kb)

ESM 5

(SPS 0 kb)

ESM 6

(SAV 1 kb)

ESM 7

(SAV 1 kb)

Appendix: Extract of polymat-c.sps that shows the code lines configurable by the user

Appendix: Extract of polymat-c.sps that shows the code lines configurable by the user

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Lorenzo-Seva, U., Ferrando, P.J. POLYMAT-C: a comprehensive SPSS program for computing the polychoric correlation matrix. Behav Res 47, 884–889 (2015). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-014-0511-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-014-0511-x

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