Exploratory Factor Analysis with SAS

Did the Initial Solution Get It Right?

In our mind, the primary issue to be decided prior to a higher-order factor analysis is whether the initial factor structure is appropriate or not. If we extract five factors, and then decide there is a single second-order factor (or even two second-order factors), the first question we would ask is whether the original solution was correct, or whether the correct first-order structure should have been one (or two) factors rather than five.[2]

In the seven or eight decades since this discussion began in earnest, many things have changed in quantitative methods. One is the easy access to confirmatory factor analysis techniques. Although we have not discussed confirmatory techniques, they are methods for ...