Evaluating the Use of Exploratory Factor Analysisin Developmental Disability Psychological Research

摘要

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is a widelyused but poorly understood statistical procedure. Thispaper described EFA and its methodological variations.Then, key methodological variations were used to evaluateEFA usage over a 10-year period in five leading develop-mental disabilities journals. Sixty-six studies were locatedand evaluated on multiple procedural variations. Only 35%(n 23) of studies used EFA; principal componentsanalysis was the model used most often (n = 40, 61%).Orthogonal rotation was used most often (n = 39, 59%). Alarge portion of studies ran analyses with a subject: itemratio larger than 5:1 (n = 49, 74%). Most researchersemployed multiple criteria for retaining factors (n = 45,68%). Overall, results indicated that published recom-mendations and guidelines for the use of EFA are largelyignored.