Evaluating the use of exploratory factor analysis in psychological research.

Abstract

Despite the widespread use of exploratory factor analysis in psychological research, researchers often make questionable decisions when conducting these analyses.This article reviews the major design and analytical decisions that must be made when conducting a factor analysis and notes that each of these decisions has important consequences for the obtained results.Recommendations that have been made in the methodological literature are discussed.Analyses of 3 existing empirical data sets are used to illustrate how questionable decisions in conducting factor analyses can yield problematic results.The article presents a survey of 2 prominent journals that suggests that researchers routinely conduct analyses using such questionable methods.The implications of these practices for psychological research are discussed, and the reasons for current practices are reviewed.Since its initial development nearly a century ago (Spearman, 1904(Spearman, , 1927)), exploratory factor analysis (EFA) has been one of the most widely used statistical procedures in psychological research.Despite this long history and wide application, the use of factor analysis in psychological research has often been criticized.Some critics have raised concerns about fundamental limitations of factor analysis for contributing to theory development (e.g., Gould, 1981;Hills, 1977;Overall, 1964).For instance, Armstrong (1967), in an article entitled "Derivation of theory by means of factor analysis or Tom Swift and his electric factor analysis machine," argued that factor analysis had limited utility for aiding in the development of theory, because it could not be relied on to provide meaningful insights into data. 1He attempted to demonstrate this point by creating artificial data with a known structure and then ostensibly showing that EFA failed to accurately represent the structure. 2Other critics have not challenged the fundamental utility of EFA but have instead criticized the manner in which it is