Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-26-2024
Publication Title
Open Education Studies
Volume
6
Issue
1
First page number:
1
Last page number:
18
Abstract
Pearson’s correlation is widely used to test for an association between two variables and also forms the basis of several multivariate statistical procedures including many latent variable models. Spearman’s p is a popular alternative. These procedures are compared with ranking the data and then applying the inverse normal transformation, or for short the normrank transformation. Using the normrank transformation was more powerful than Pearson’s and Spearman’s procedures when the distributions have less than normal kurtosis (platykurtic), when the distributions have greater than normal kurtosis (leptokurtic), and when the distribution is skewed. This is examined for testing if there is an association between two variables, identifying the number of factors in an exploratory factor analysis, identifying appropriate loadings in these analyses, and identifying relations among latent variables in structural equation models. R functions and their use are shown.
Keywords
robust statistics; latent variable models; structural equation modelling; statistical power
Disciplines
Non-linear Dynamics | Numerical Analysis and Computation
File Format
File Size
3900 KB
Language
English
Rights
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Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Repository Citation
Wright, D. B.
(2024).
Normrank Correlations for Testing Associations and for Use in Latent Variable Models.
Open Education Studies, 6(1),
1-18.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/edu-2024-0003