On exploratory factor analysis: a review of recent evidence, an assessment of current practice, and recommendations for future use

Exploratory factor analysis (hereafter, factor analysis) is a complex statistical method that is integral to many fields of research. Using factor analysis requires researchers to make several decisions, each of which affects the solutions generated. In this paper, we focus on five major decisions that are made in conducting factor analysis: (i) establishing how large the sample needs to be, (ii) choosing between factor analysis and principal components analysis, (iii) determining the number of factors to retain, (iv) selecting a method of data extraction, and (v) deciding upon the methods of factor rotation. The purpose of this paper is threefold: (i) to review the literature with respect to these five decisions, (ii) to assess current practices in nursing research, and (iii) to offer recommendations for future use. The literature reviews illustrate that factor analysis remains a dynamic field of study, with recent research having practical implications for those who use this statistical method. The assessment was conducted on 54 factor analysis (and principal components analysis) solutions presented in the results sections of 28 papers published in the 2012 volumes of the 10 highest ranked nursing journals, based on their 5-year impact factors. The main findings from the assessment were that researchers commonly used (a) participants-to-items ratios for determining sample sizes (used for 43% of solutions), (b) principal components analysis (61%) rather than factor analysis (39%), (c) the eigenvalues greater than one rule and screen tests to decide upon the numbers of factors/components to retain (61% and 46%, respectively), (d) principal components analysis and unweighted least squares as methods of data extraction (61% and 19%, respectively), and (e) the Varimax method of rotation (44%). In general, well-established, but out-dated, heuristics and practices informed decision making with respect to the performance of factor analysis in nursing studies. Based on the findings from factor analysis research, it seems likely that the use of such methods may have had a material, adverse effect on the solutions generated. We offer recommendations for future practice with respect to each of the five decisions discussed in this paper.

Knowledge-based automatic performance evaluation for medical training debriefing

 Manikin-based medical simulation has been shown to benefit the knowledge, skills and attitudes of the learner, and to impart favourable patient effects. A vital component of any training simulation is the after-session discussion with trainees to debrief their performance. In this study we develop a rule-based debriefing tool for improving the efficacy of medical training sessions. Unlike most existing de-briefing tools, the tool presented here has been designed to reduce medical trainer assessment time and to improve evaluation accuracy through a largely automated evaluation of trainee performance. The developed tool is acknowledged by the School of Medicine of Deakin University as an important advancement in assisting medical trainers carry out the debriefing process effectively and efficiently.

A stakeholder approach to corporate social responsibility, reputation and business performance

Purpose - This paper aims to investigate business managers' assessment of stakeholders' influence on corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. The key stakeholders included "employees" and "unions" as internal and "public", the "media" and the "government" as external stakeholders. The purpose was to estimate the influence of stakeholders that managers perceive as important. Moreover, the study sought to identify association between the CSR construct and corporate reputation and in turn whether this influences business performance. Design/methodology/approach - This study uses a mail survey with a random sampling of senior managers sourced from Dun & Bradstreet's Australian business database, focusing on large organizations (i.e. minimum $10 million p.a. reported sales and minimum 100 employees) as the selection criteria. A conceptual model was developed and tested using structural equation modeling. Findings - The results identified that "employees" and the "public" are perceived to be the influential stakeholder groups in CSR decision-making. There was evidence of a positive relationship between the CSR construct and reputation, which in turn influenced market share, but not profitability. Research limitations/implications - This study examined a cross-section of organizations using Dun & Bradstreet's database of Australian businesses and may not fully represent the Australian business mix. The effective response rate of 7.2 per cent appears to be low, even though it is comparable with other research in the CSR area. There may have been some self-selection by the respondents, although there were no statistically significant differences identified in the corporate characteristics of those invited to participate and those responding with usable questionnaires. Practical implications - Managers can adopt a stakeholder-influenced CSR strategy to generate strong corporate reputation to improve business performance. It is important to ensure that the interests of "employees" and "public" stakeholders are addressed within organizational strategy. Respondents were less concerned about government stakeholders and thus government involvement in organizational CSR may need to be revisited. Social implications - The major concern that emerges from these findings is the absence of the perceived importance of regulatory stakeholders on firms' CSR activities. Regulatory controls of CSR messages could reduce or eliminate inaccurate and misleading information to the public. Originality/value - The analysis explains the perceived relative influence of stakeholders on CSR decisions. It also provides an understanding of the link between organizational CSR reputation and organization's performance.

Leadership and teamwork in medical emergencies: Performance of nursing students and registered nurses in simulated patient scenarios

Aims and objectives: To examine nursing students' and registered nurses' teamwork skills whilst managing simulated deteriorating patients. Background: Studies continue to show the lack of timely recognition of patient deterioration. Management of deteriorating patients can be influenced by education and experience. Design: Mixed methods study conducted in two universities and a rural hospital in Victoria, and one university in Queensland, Australia. Methods: Three simulation scenarios (chest pain, hypovolaemic shock and respiratory distress) were completed in teams of three by 97 nursing students and 44 registered nurses, equating to a total of 32 student and 15 registered nurse teams. Data were obtained from (1) Objective Structured Clinical Examination rating to assess performance; (2) Team Emergency Assessment Measure scores to assess teamwork; (3) simulation video footage; (4) reflective interview during participants' review of video footage. Qualitative thematic analysis of video and interview data was undertaken. Results: Objective structured clinical examination performance was similar across registered nurses and students (mean 54% and 49%); however, Team Emergency Assessment Measure scores differed significantly between the two groups (57% vs 38%, t = 6·841, p < 0·01). In both groups, there was a correlation between technical (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) and nontechnical (Team Emergency Assessment Measure) scores for the respiratory distress scenario (student teams: r = 0·530, p = 0·004, registered nurse teams r = 0·903, p < 0·01) and hypovolaemia scenario (student teams: r = 0·534, p = 0·02, registered nurse teams: r = 0·535, p = 0·049). Themes generated from the analysis of the combined quantitative and qualitative data were as follows: (1) leadership and followership behaviours; (2) help-seeking behaviours; (3) reliance on previous experience; (4) fixation on a single detail; and (5) team support. Conclusions: There is scope to improve leadership, team work and task management skills for registered nurses and nursing students. Simulation appears to be beneficial in enabling less experienced staff to assess their teamwork skills. Relevance to clinical practice: There is a need to encourage less experienced staff to become leaders and for all staff to develop improved teamwork skills for medical emergencies.

Quantitative assessment of ADL: a pilot study of upper extremity reaching tasks

Effective telerehabilitation technologies enable patients with certain physiological disabilities to engage in rehabilitative exercises for performing Activities of Daily Living (ADLs). Therefore, training and assessment scenarios for the performance of ADLs are vital for the promotion for telerehabilitation. In this paper we investigate quantitatively and automatically assessing patient's kinematic ability to perform functional upper extremity reaching tasks. The shape of the movement trajectory and the instantaneous acceleration of kinematically crucial body parts, such as wrists, are used to compute the approximate entropy of the motions to represent stability (smoothness) in addition to the duration of the activity. Computer simulations were conducted to illustrate the consistency, sensitivity and robustness of the proposed method. A preliminary experiment with kinematic data captured from healthy subjects mimicking a reaching task with dyskinesia showed a high degree of correlation (Cohen's kappa 0.85 with p < 0.05) between a human observer and the proposed automatic classification tool in terms of assigning the datasets to various levels to represent the subjects' kinematic abilities to perform reaching tasks. This study supported the use of Microsoft Kinect to quantitatively evaluate the ability of individuals with involuntary movements to perform an upper extremity reaching task.

Changes in gait performance over several years are associated with recurrent falls status in community-dwelling older women at high risk of fracture

Background: gait analysis is a recommended geriatric assessment for falls risk and sarcopenia; however, previous research utilises measurements at a single time point only. It is presently unclear how changes in gait over several years influence risk of recurrent falls in older adults.Methods: we investigated 135 female volunteers (mean age ± SD: 76.7 ± 5.0 years; range: 70-92 years) at high risk of fracture. Gait parameters (speed, cadence, step length, step width, swing time and double support phase) were assessed using the GAITRite Electronic Walkway System at four annual clinics over ?3.7 ± 0.5 years. Participants reported incident falls monthly for 3.7 ± 1.2 years.Results: increasing gait speed (odds ratio: 0.96; 95% confidence interval 0.93, 0.99) and step length (0.87; 0.77, 0.98) from baseline to final follow-up was associated with reduced likelihood of being a recurrent faller over the study period. No significant associations were observed for baseline gait parameters (all P ≥ 0.05). At the second follow-up (2.8 ± 0.6 years), an increase in swing time (0.65; 0.43, 0.98) was associated with reduced likelihood, while an increase in double support phase (1.31; 1.04, 1.66) was associated with increased likelihood, for being a recurrent faller in the subsequent 1.3 years following this time point.Conclusion: changes in gait parameters over several years are significantly associated with the likelihood of being a recurrent faller among community-dwelling older women at high risk of fracture. Further research is required to develop gait monitoring guidelines and gait parameter decline cut points that may be utilised by clinicians to identify older adults at risk of incident falls and sarcopenia.

Formalising industry feedback in assessment practice for work integrated learning

Work Integrated Learning (WIL) programs, such as co-operative education programs, offer students a learning environment which exists outside the traditional classroom and specific discipline boundaries. This necessitates assessment practices that go beyond traditional practices and relationships. Work placement supervisors are best located to observe the students' learning and development and offer feedback on performance and improvement. An investigation was carried out in order to articulate the role of supervisors and work colleagues in facilitating learning in the workplace environment and their involvement in assessment practices. Interviews were conducted with academics and industry representatives on their perceptions of assessment task validity in terms of professional and generic skill development. A synthesis of the findings formed the basis of the research described in this paper. Key findings highlighted the need for better preparation of industry supervisors as to their role in providing feedback and assessment; better preparation of students for transition from the classroom to the workplace; and the importance of ongoing involvement of the three stakeholders (academic, supervisor and student) to maximise learning and professional development. Recommendations for assessment practices include suggestions on how to involve employers in appraising workplace performance; how to measure the real life application of learning; and the development of generic employability skills. © Common Ground, Kathy Henschke, Joan Richardson.

Improving risk assessment in schizophrenia: epidemiological investigation of criminal history factors

Background : Violence risk assessment in schizophrenia relies heavily on criminal history factors.

Aims : To investigate which criminal history factors are most strongly associated with violent crime in schizophrenia.

Method : A total of 13 806 individuals (8891 men and 4915 women) with two or more hospital admissions for schizophrenia were followed up for violent convictions. Multivariate hazard ratios for 15 criminal history factors included in different risk assessment tools were calculated. The incremental predictive validity of these factors was estimated using tests of discrimination, calibration and reclassification.

Results : Over a mean follow-up of 12.0 years, 17.3% of men (n = 1535) and 5.7% of women (n = 281) were convicted of a violent offence. Criminal history factors most strongly associated with subsequent violence for both men and women were a previous conviction for a violent offence; for assault, illegal threats and/or intimidation; and imprisonment. However, only a previous conviction for a violent offence was associated with incremental predictive validity in both genders following adjustment for young age and comorbid substance use disorder.

Conclusions : Clinical and actuarial approaches to assess violence risk can be improved if included risk factors are tested using multiple measures of performance.

A new fuzzy peer assessment methodology for cooperative learning of students

In this paper, a new fuzzy peer assessment methodology that considers vagueness and imprecision of words used throughout the evaluation process in a cooperative learning environment is proposed. Instead of numerals, words are used in the evaluation process, in order to provide greater flexibility. The proposed methodology is a synthesis of perceptual computing (Per-C) and a fuzzy ranking algorithm. Per-C is adopted because it allows uncertainties of words to be considered in the evaluation process. Meanwhile, the fuzzy ranking algorithm is deployed to obtain appropriate performance indices that reflect a student's contribution in a group, and subsequently rank the student accordingly. A case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology is described. Implications of the results are analyzed and discussed. The outcomes clearly demonstrate that the proposed fuzzy peer assessment methodology can be deployed as an effective evaluation tool for cooperative learning of students.

Prosthetic motor imaginary task classification based on EEG quality assessment features

Brain Computer Interface (BCI) plays an important role in the communication between human and machines. This communication is based on the human brain signals. In these systems, users use their brain instead of the limbs or body movements to do tasks. The brain signals are analyzed and translated into commands to control any communication devices, robots or computers. In this paper, the aim was to enhance the performance of a brain computer interface (BCI) systems through better prosthetic motor imaginary tasks classification. The challenging part is to use only a single channel of electroencephalography (EEG). Arm movement imagination is the task of the user, where (s)he was asked to imagine moving his arm up or down. Our system detected the imagination based on the input brain signal. Some EEG quality features were extracted from the brain signal, and the Decision Tree was used to classify the participant's imagination based on the extracted features. Our system is online which means that it can give the decision as soon as the signal is given to the system (takes only 20 ms). Also, only one EEG channel is used for classification which reduces the complexity of the system which leads to fast performance. Hundred signals were used for testing, on average 97.4% of the up-down prosthetic motor imaginary tasks were detected correctly. This method can be used in many different applications such as: moving artificial limbs and wheelchairs due to it's high speed and accuracy.

Faculty Instructional Quality Assessment Practices Incorporating Teaching Portfolios and Peer Review with Student Course Evaluations

Program directors and department chairs require different means of assessing faculty quality due to the unreliability of student course evaluation data. This report outlines alternative strategies for review committees to assess faculty instructional quality. This report also details incorporation of annual performance reviews for tenure-track faculty into tenure decisions.

A BDI-based approach for the assessment of driver's decision-making in commuter scenarios

The rapid growth of urban areas has a significant impact on traffic and transportation systems. New management policies and planning strategies are clearly necessary to cope with the more than ever limited capacity of existing road networks. The concept of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) arises in this scenario; rather than attempting to increase road capacity by means of physical modifications to the infrastructure, the premise of ITS relies on the use of advanced communication and computer technologies to handle today’s traffic and transportation facilities. Influencing users’ behaviour patterns is a challenge that has stimulated much research in the ITS field, where human factors start gaining great importance to modelling, simulating, and assessing such an innovative approach. This work is aimed at using Multi-agent Systems (MAS) to represent the traffic and transportation systems in the light of the new performance measures brought about by ITS technologies. Agent features have good potentialities to represent those components of a system that are geographically and functionally distributed, such as most components in traffic and transportation. A BDI (beliefs, desires, and intentions) architecture is presented as an alternative to traditional models used to represent the driver behaviour within microscopic simulation allowing for an explicit representation of users’ mental states. Basic concepts of ITS and MAS are presented, as well as some application examples related to the subject. This has motivated the extension of an existing microscopic simulation framework to incorporate MAS features to enhance the representation of drivers. This way demand is generated from a population of agents as the result of their decisions on route and departure time, on a daily basis. The extended simulation model that now supports the interaction of BDI driver agents was effectively implemented, and different experiments were performed to test this approach in commuter scenarios. MAS provides a process-driven approach that fosters the easy construction of modular, robust, and scalable models, characteristics that lack in former result-driven approaches. Its abstraction premises allow for a closer association between the model and its practical implementation. Uncertainty and variability are addressed in a straightforward manner, as an easier representation of humanlike behaviours within the driver structure is provided by cognitive architectures, such as the BDI approach used in this work. This way MAS extends microscopic simulation of traffic to better address the complexity inherent in ITS technologies.

Correlations among behavior, performance and environment in broiler breeders using multivariate analysis

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Performance of supplemented heifers on Marandu grass pastures in the wet-to-dry transition and dry seasons

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the characteristics of the sward canopy of Marandu grass during the rainy season, the wet-to-dry transition and the dry seasons, between March and September 2004, under intermittent grazing, and to correlate those characteristics with the performance of crossbred heifers receiving mineral supplements ad libitum or protein supplements. The experiment consisted of a randomized block design with three blocks (set of 13 paddocks), each containing five crossbred heifers per experimental unit, totaling 15 replicates. The heifers were given protein supplements daily in individual stalls and received an average 4 g/kg/day of the supplement during the rainy season and 5 g/kg/day during the dry season. Their weight gain was assessed monthly. The pasture structure was assessed through destructive sampling, and the bromatological composition of esophageal extrusa samples was also assessed. Analysis of variance was used to assess performance, and regression analysis was used to evaluate the sward canopy characteristics in relation to the months of the year. A cluster procedure was used to determine the similarity between the months of the year under assessment. Two different groups were formed for pasture evaluation: one group including the months of March to July and another group including the months of August and September. The first group exhibited a better canopy structure than the second group. This fact was corroborated by the animal performance, which was lower during the months of the second group. Low-intake protein supplementation was effective in increasing the performance of the grazing heifers. Pasture structure is critical for animal performance in a grazing environment, regardless of the type of supplementation.

Evaluation of the Cartographic Communication Performance of a Route Guidance and Navigation System

This study evaluates the influence of different cartographic representations of in-car navigation systems on visual demand, subjective preference, and navigational error. It takes into account the type and complexity of the representation, maneuvering complexity, road layout, and driver gender. A group of 28 drivers (14 male and 14 female) participated in this experiment which was performed in a low-cost driving simulator. The tests were performed on a limited number of instances for each type of representation, and their purpose was to carry out a preliminary assessment and provide future avenues for further studies. Data collected for the visual demand study were analyzed using non-parametric statistical analyses. Results confirmed previous research that showed that different levels of design complexity significantly influence visual demand. Non-grid-like road networks, for example, influence significantly visual demand and navigational error. An analysis of simple maneuvers on a grid-like road network showed that static and blinking arrows did not present significant differences. From the set of representations analyzed to assess visual demand, both arrows were equally efficient. From a gender perspective, women seem to took at the display more than men, but this factor was not significant. With respect to subjective preferences, drivers prefer representations with mimetic landmarks when they perform straight-ahead tasks. For maneuvering tasks, landmarks in a perspective model created higher visual demands.