qmethod: qflag – R documentation

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qflag

Q methodology: automatic flagging of Q-sorts

Description

Applies the two standard algorithms to pre-flag Q-sorts automatically, for posterior calculation of the statement scores.

Usage

qflag(loa, nstat)

Arguments

`loa`	a Q-sort factor loading matrix obtained, for example from `unclass(principal(...)$loadings)`, or from `qmethod(...)$loa`.
`nstat`	number of statements in the study.

Details

These are the two standard criteria for automatic flagging used in Q method analysis:

Q-sorts which factor loading is higher than the threshold for p-value < 0.05, and
Q-sorts which square loading is higher than the sum of square loadings of the same Q-sort in all other factors.

Returns a logical matrix with Q-sorts as rows, and factors as columns.

Note

This is a function used within qmethod. Rarely to be used independently.

Author(s)

Aiora Zabala

References

Brown, S. R., 1980 Political subjectivity: Applications of Q methodology in political science, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Van Exel, J., de Graaf, G., Rietveld, P., 2011. "'I can do perfectly well without a car!'" Transportation 38, 383-407 (Page 388, footnote 8).

See further references on the methodology in qmethod-package.

Examples

data(lipset)
library(psych)
loa <- unclass(principal(lipset[[1]], nfactors = 3,
               rotate = "varimax")$loadings)
flagged <- qflag(loa = loa, nstat = nrow(lipset[[1]]))
summary(flagged)

qmethod

Analysis of Subjective Perspectives Using Q Methodology

v1.8

GPL (>= 2)

Authors

Aiora Zabala [aut, cre] (Main author, <https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8534-3325>), Maximilian Held [aut] (Author of additional data management functions), Frans Hermans [aut] (Author of centroid extraction function)

Initial release

2021-03-12