Producing Bartlett's test of sphericity in PROC FACTOR


You can obtain Bartlett's test of sphericity by specifying the options METHOD=ML and HEYWOOD in the PROC FACTOR statement. For example:

proc factor method=ml heywood;

An excerpt from sample output appears below. The row H0: No common factors contains the degrees of freedom, chi-square statistic, and p-value corresponding to Bartlett's test of sphericity. The small p-value (p<0.0001) rejecting the null hypothesis of sphericity suggests that the data are appropriate for factor analysis.

For more information, see the following reference:

David W. Stewart, "The Application and Misapplication of Factor Analysis in Marketing Research" Journal of Marketing Research Vol. XVIII (February 1981), 51-62.