ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a sample lesson on Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) in educational research. The lesson starts with a brief overview of EFA and then students examine application of the EFA in peer-reviewed articles. The lesson then details the steps required for performing EFA and summarizing statistical conclusions. Lastly, the lesson asks students to perform EFA on a real dataset using statistical software (i.e., SPSS and R) and then to interpret results. Students are encouraged to identify their own research questions so that they can collect data and practice applying EFA on their own data, thus maximizing their conceptual understanding. At the end of this lesson, students will be able to use EFA to present statistical findings (including tables and figures) in line with academic writing requirements and critically evaluate literature using EFA.
