factor analysis, missing data,

No abstract

Creativity, problem solving, and innovation are of increasing concern to organizations in these times of accelerating change. This article seeks to deepen readers' understanding of the specific attitudes and thinking processes associated with creative behavior in organizations. The authors report on two empirical studies that developed a reliable, valid measure of "preference for ideation," an important attitude identified in previous creative problem-solving training research. They also identify three additional, distinct ideation-related attitudes: the tendency to make premature critical evaluations of ideas, the valuing of new ideas, and the belief that creative thinking is bizarre. The article presents a speculative model that differentiates "ideation" and "deferral of judgment" attitudinally and cognitively, categorizing Osborn's brainstorming rules accordingly.

Use of judgmental and heuristic principles has led to development of an automatized computer method for transformation (rotation) of factors. In this method the notion of an attribute vector being “in an hyperplane” is formalized in an artificial personal probability function and the hyperplane location is defined by a weighted least squares principle using the personal probabilities as weights. The method has yielded superior results in numerous trials with real and Monte Carlo data for positive manifold situations. The method has not been studied as thoroughly in the more general situation involving both positive and negative transformed factor loadings but appears to yield good results.

This study attempted to discover the underlying dimensions involved in student attitudes toward courses and instructors. A course and instructor evaluation questionnaire was administered to 1,616 subjects at the academic centers and to 6,352 subjects at the main campus of Cleveland State University. The data were factor analyzed and yielded, five rotated factors in each group, accounting for approximately 50% of the total variance. The factor matrices for the two groups were found to be significantly congruent. The five factors were interpreted as General Course Attitude, Attitude toward Examinations, Attitude toward Method, Instructor/Student Rapport, and Attitude toward Work Load. A multifactor model of course attitudes was supported.