Abstract
Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is widely used in psychological (assessment) research. Due to its exploratory nature, several researcher degrees of freedom exist on how to conduct the analysis. While simulation studies can provide meaningful insights into which factor retention methods to use to determine the number of latent factors, or which estimation methods recover parameter values most precisely given certain data characteristics, the issue of rotational indeterminacy makes it very difficult to decide which rotation method to apply. An alternative to the two-stage approach of extracting factors and subsequently rotating them to foster interpretability is the so-called regularized EFA. In this paper, we contrast both approaches and demonstrate how regularized EFA can be applied. In doing so, we want to encourage researchers to try out the approach themselves and help them find a way of EFA that appears less arbitrary compared to classical factor rotation.
Original language | English |
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Journal | European Journal of Psychological Assessment |
Early online date | 11 Oct 2023 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 11 Oct 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2023 The Author(s).
Funding
Open access publication enabled by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen
Funders | Funder number |
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Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen |
Keywords
- exploratory factor analysis
- factor rotation
- psychological assessment
- regularization
- rotational indeterminacy