Chapter 9 Week 2 - Reading questions

Reference

Preacher, Kristopher J. and MacCullum, Robert C. (2003) Repairing Tom Swift’s Electric Factor Analysis Machine, Understanding Statistics 2(1) 13-43.

Questions

1. What is a latent variable?
2. What is factor analysis and what can you investigate using this method?
3. In the introduction, Preacher and Maccallum talk about a “little jiffy” method of doing factor analysis. Can you shortly list what this litlle jiffy – or bad practice – method of factor analysis is?
4. What are in short the differences between Principal Component Analyses and Exploratory Factor Analyses?
5. What is the purpose of factor rotation?

Reference

Kestilä, Elina (2006) Is There Demand for Radical Right Populism in the Finnish Electorate? Scandinavian Political Studies 29(3),169-191

Questions

1. What is the research question that the author tries to answer?
2. Describe shortly the characteristics of the Radical Right Parties (RRP) in Europe.
3. What are the two main explanations of support for RRP that this paper focuses on? Does the empirical part of the paper reflect the theoretical framework well?
   
4. Is Finland very different from other European countries in on the main dependent variables according to the author?
5. What is the conclusion by the author; i.e. what is the answer to the research question?