Factor Analysis - Exploratory Factor Analysis Versus Principal Components Analysis

Exploratory Factor Analysis Versus Principal Components Analysis

See also: Principal component analysis and Exploratory factor analysis

While exploratory factor analysis and principal component analysis are treated as synonymous techniques in some fields of statistics, this has been criticised (e.g. Fabrigar et al., 1999; Suhr, 2009). In factor analysis, the researcher makes the assumption that an underlying causal model exists, whereas PCA is simply a variable reduction technique. Researchers have argued that the distinctions between the two techniques may mean that there are objective benefits for preferring one over the other based on the analytic goal.

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