ABSTRACT
Introduction We should start by mentioning that the term ‘factor analysis’ can refer to two rather different statistical techniques. Exploratory factor analysis is the older (and simpler) technique and forms the basis of this chapter and the first section of Chapter 17. Confirmatory factor analysis and its extensions (sometimes known as ‘path analysis’, ‘latent variable analysis’ or ‘Lisrel models’) are useful in many areas other than individual differences and are particularly popular in social psychology. A brief outline of this technique is given at the end of Chapter 17. Authors do not always make it clear whether exploratory or confirmatory factor analysis has been used. If you see the term ‘factor analysis’ in a journal, you should assume that it refers to an exploratory factor analysis.
