Chapter 14 Week 3 - Reading questions

Reference

Byrne, Barbara (2005) Factor Analytic Models: Viewing the Structure of an Assessment Instrument From Three Perspectives, Journal of Personality Assessment 85(1), 17-32

Questions

1. What are the main differences between exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)?
2. In what circumstances should a researcher use EFA and when CFA?
3. What are the 5 main limitations of EFA, that CFA models overcome?
4. In what circumstances can a second order CFA be useful?
5. Compare the four factor analysis techniques we have now discussed: PCA (see last week) and the models on page 21 (EFA), page 19/24 (CFA) and page 26 (second order CFA). Consider the following three research situations: which factor analysis technqiue would you prefer for each situation and why?
   1. A researcher has developed a new questionnaire that should measure someone’s personality and wants to know how many factors there are.
   2. A researcher has used seven items that have been used since the 1960 to measure one concept: authoritarianism
   3. A researcher has recorded someon’s highest completed education, the number of years of education someone has taken and highest education followed for all respondents in a survey, and is unsure which variable to use to measure the concept ‘education’