Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 26, 2026

Problem-Solving Before Instruction PS-I: A Protocol for Assessment and Intervention in Students with Different Abilities
Published on: September 11, 2021
A Legitimate Case of Component Analysis of Ipsative Measures, and Partialling the Mean as an Alternative to
Abstract:
Ipsatizing variable prior to component analysis, by subtracting the man score of each individual from all scores of that individual, has met with serious criticisms, both strategic and technical. On the other hand, the procedure is still popular in the study of personality, as a means of removing acquiescence variance. An attempt is made at reconciling these facts. Technical objections to component analysis of ipsatized variables, recently restated by Dunlap and Cornwall, are shown to be based on erroneous premises. A strategic objection leveled by Clemans does apply in a majority of cases, but has no bearing on the specific case of ipsatizing responses to personality questionnaires made up of opposite item pears. As an alternative to ipsatizing by subtraction of the mean, partialling the mean component is suggested as a more elegant procedure, allowing a breakdown of explained variance into variance due to the mean and to subequent components uncorrelated with the mean.
Related Concept Videos
Weighted Mean
For example, consider the number of goals scored in the matches of a tournament. While computing the average number of goals scored in the tournament, it may be more important to...
Trimmed Mean
Although certain measures of central tendency are not sensitive to outliers, there are alternative versions of the mean that get around the...
Central Tendency: Analysis
The mean is one such measure, calculated by totaling all values in a dataset and dividing by the number of values. For instance, the mean blood pressure reading (120, 130, 140, 150) would be 135. However, the mean can be affected by extreme values or outliers.
The median, another measure,...
Arithmetic Mean
When all the values in a data set are not unique, the sum in the numerator can be calculated by multiplying each distinct value by its frequency.
Sometimes, the arithmetic mean of a sample can be affected by a few data points...
One-Way ANOVA: Equal Sample Sizes
Different sample means can result in different values for the variance estimate: variance between samples. This is because the variance between samples is calculated as the product of the sample size and the variance between the...
Regression Toward the Mean

