Exploratory Factor Analysis

Abstract

Factor analysis is a collection of methods for explaining the correlations among variables in terms of more fundamental entities called factors. It grew out of the observation that variables from a carefully formulated domain, such as tests of human ability or measures of interpersonal functioning, are often correlated with each other. According to the factor analytic perspective, variables correlate because they are determined in part by common, but unobserved influences. These influences must be superordinate to the variables that are actually measured because they account for the individual differences in the tests. The goals of factor analysis are to determine the number of fundamental influences underlying a domain of variables, to quantify the extent to which each variable is associated with the factors, and to obtain information about their nature from observing which factors contribute to performance on which variables. The chapter also illustrates how factor analysis resembles the partial correlation problem in several ways.