Suppose you wished to determine physical health and you measure the following variables - isoinertial muscular strength, aerobic capacity, peak expiratory flow, static muscular strength, muscular endurance and haematocrit. Before conducting a principal component analysis or a factor analysis, what would you look to do first?
A) Run paired samples t-tests between each variable.
B) Run a one-way repeated-measures ANOVA' between the variables.
C) Run a series of correlations (correlation matrix) between each variable.
D) Run a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test between each variable.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Before conducting a principal component analysis or a factor analysis, it is important to run a correlation matrix between each variable to determine the strength of the relationship between them. This will help determine if variables can be combined into factors or components. Running paired samples t-tests or a one-way repeated-measures ANOVA will not provide information about the relationships between the variables. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is used to determine if two samples come from the same distribution and is not relevant in this case.

Suppose You Wished to Determine Physical Health and You Measure