ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we shift the focus of our attention to the third group of advanced/multivariate statistical
techniques discussed in this text. Specifically, we present a discussion of a procedure known as factor
analysis, which is used to describe the underlying structure that explains a set of variables. It is a tech-
nique-similar to correlation and regression-that capitalizes on shared variability. Factor analysis has
many practical applications within social science settings.
