Three-way component analysis: Principles and illustrative application

Three-way component analysis techniques are designed for descriptive analys is of 3-way data, for example, when data are collected on individuals, in d ifferent settings, and on different measures. Such techniques summarize all information in a 3-way data set by summarizing, for each way of the 3-way data set, the associated entities through a few components and describing t he relations between these components. In this article, 3-mode principal co mponents analysis is described at an elementary level. Guidance is given co ncerning the choices to be made in each step of the process of analyzing 3- way data by this technique. The complete process is illustrated with a deta iled description of the analysis of an empirical 3-way data set.