{"id":1780,"date":"2021-06-07T21:03:21","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T20:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/?post_type=docs&p=1780"},"modified":"2026-03-06T11:56:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T10:56:41","password":"","slug":"factor-analysis","status":"publish","type":"docs","link":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/glossary2\/factor-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"Factor analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Factor Analyses (FA) are a set of techniques that allows us to look in more detail at the strength of underlying correlations between scores on the items of a measure. These provide some useful indication about whether items appear to tap common, i.e. shared, sources of variation between individuals, a major part of construct validity<\/strong>. Historically FA was exploratory: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)<\/strong>. (In reality, a closely related approach called Principal Component Analysis (PCA)<\/strong> was often used and reported as an EFA though it’s actually a distinct method.) Less often, Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS)<\/strong> has been used for similar purposes: it analyses ordinal correlations rather than correlations using the raw item scores. More recently, with much more computer power available, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)<\/strong>, which can test an expected mapping of items to presumed factors has become fashionable and has almost displaced EFA, PCA and MDS.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Detail<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

See Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)<\/strong> and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)<\/strong> for more detail, Construct Validity<\/strong> for background detail. Principal Component Analysis (PCA)<\/strong> and Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS)<\/strong> are background, not central to FA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Try also …<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Bifactor analysis<\/a>
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)<\/a>
Construct Validity
Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)<\/a>
Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS)<\/a>
Principal Component Analysis (PCA)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapters<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Not developed in the OMbook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further reading<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Should be developed in the Rblog<\/a> but not there yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Online applications<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Nothing likely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dates<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Started before 14.xi.21, last tweaked 6.iii.26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Factor Analyses (FA) are a set of techniques that allows us to look in more detail at the strength of underlying correlations between scores on the items of a measure. These provide some useful indication about whether items appear to tap common, i.e. shared, sources of variation between individuals, a major part of construct validity. … Continue reading Factor analysis<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"doc_category":[18],"glossaries":[],"doc_tag":[22,20,21,19],"knowledge_base":[],"class_list":["post-1780","docs","type-docs","status-publish","hentry","doc_category-om-book","doc_tag-factor-analysis","doc_tag-psychometrics","doc_tag-statistics","doc_tag-validity"],"year_month":"2026-04","word_count":227,"total_views":"1440","reactions":{"happy":"0","normal":"0","sad":"0"},"author_info":{"name":"chris","author_nicename":"chris","author_url":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/author\/chris\/"},"doc_category_info":[{"term_name":"All OM book glossary entries","term_url":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/glossary\/non-knowledgebase\/om-book\/"}],"doc_tag_info":[{"term_name":"Factor analysis","term_url":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/docs-tag\/factor-analysis\/"},{"term_name":"Psychometrics","term_url":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/docs-tag\/psychometrics\/"},{"term_name":"Statistics","term_url":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/docs-tag\/statistics\/"},{"term_name":"Validity","term_url":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/docs-tag\/validity\/"}],"knowledge_base_info":[],"knowledge_base_slug":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs\/1780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/docs"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1780"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs\/1780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5234,"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs\/1780\/revisions\/5234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"doc_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doc_category?post=1780"},{"taxonomy":"glossaries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/glossaries?post=1780"},{"taxonomy":"doc_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doc_tag?post=1780"},{"taxonomy":"knowledge_base","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/psyctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/knowledge_base?post=1780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}