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Evaluating A Proposed Modification Of The Guttman Rule For Determining The Number Of Factors In An Exploratory Factor Analysis, Russell T. Warne, Ross Larsen
Evaluating A Proposed Modification Of The Guttman Rule For Determining The Number Of Factors In An Exploratory Factor Analysis, Russell T. Warne, Ross Larsen
Russell T Warne
Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is a widely used statistical method in which researchers attempt to ascertain the number and nature of latent factors that explain their observed variables. When conducting an EFA, researchers must choose the number of factors to retain—a critical decision that has drastic effects if made incorrectly. In this article, we examine a newly proposed method of choosing the number of factors to retain. In the new method, confidence intervals are created around each eigenvalue and factors are retained if the entire eigenvalue is greater than 1.0. Results show that this new method outperforms the traditional Guttman …