The current WMF web resource addresses the
following HCA project goal:
-
Electronically archive, document, and make accessible (to students
and researchers) the 460+ data sets used in Carroll's factor
analytic review.
The origins of the WMF HCA project lie in
an
initial
archiving project started in 2002 by
Dr.
Kevin McGrew, Director of the Institute for Applied Psychometrics
(IAP). Through a fortuitous sequence of
events, McGrew came to posses the original printouts for all
analysis used in Carroll's 1993 work. Not only do the
printouts contain the factor analysis summaries that are available
for purchase (on disk) from Cambridge University Press, but they
also include: (a) detailed output of file pre- processing,
(b) extended statistical output, (c) many traditional exploratory
factor analysis solutions (e.g., principal factor models with
orthogonal or oblique rotations) and interpretations that have
never been published, (d) hand-written notes by Carroll, and (e)
hand plotted scree-plots. More importantly, the original data
used for each analysis (the correlation matrix) was included within
the extended factor analysis output for each analysis. In
addition, McGrew visited Dr. Carroll in Alaska one month prior to
his passing away and secured electronic copies of some of the
original correlation files used in Carroll's seminal work. As
a result, IAP, together with Evans Consulting (Jeffrey Evans) began
the process to preserve and make available the 460+ correlation
matrices that served as the basis for the current CHC taxonomy of
human cognitive abilities.
Carroll's printouts and disks
Cover of a Carroll printout binders
Sample computer printout (correlation matrix)
page from a Carroll analysis.
One of the old computers Dr. Carroll had used
(picture taken during McGrew Alaska visit)
