Table 2: Loading of the participants on the three Factors. (An 'X' indicates a defining sort.)

Table 2 identifies those Q-sorts that exemplify a given factor to a statistically sufficient degree. The first factor explains the highest level of variance in the dataset. It is then removed or, in the parlance of Q methodology, ‘extracted’ from the dataset, leaving the residual Q-sorts to be compared for commonality (variance). The second factor explains the second highest level of variance of the remaining Q-sorts; this process is continued until all of the variance in the dataset is accounted for by the factors. The variance for Factor 1 is 25%, meaning that it represents 25% of the commonality among the Q-sorts.