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Noniterative Estimation and the Choice of the Number of Factors in Exploratory Factor Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Yutaka Kano
Yutaka Kano*
Affiliation:
Osaka University
*
Requests for reprints should be sent to Yutaka Kano, Department of Applied Mathematics, Faculty of Engineering Science, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Osaka 560, JAPAN.
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Abstract

Based on the usual factor analysis model, this paper investigates the relationship between improper solutions and the number of factors, and discusses the properties of the noniterative estimation method of Ihara and Kano in exploratory factor analysis. The consistency of the Ihara and Kano estimator is shown to hold even for an overestimated number of factors, which provides a theoretical basis for the rare occurrence of improper solutions and for a new method of choosing the number of factors. The comparative study of their estimator and that based on maximum likelihood is carried out by a Monte Carlo experiment.

Keywords

exploratory factor analysisidentifiabilityimproper solutionsmaximum likelihood estimatornoniterative estimatornumber of factorsquasi-loadings
Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , June 1990 , pp. 277 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 The Psychometric Society

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Footnotes

The author would like to express his thanks to Masashi Okamoto and Masamori Ihara for helpful comments and to the editor and referees for critically reading the earlier versions and making many valuable suggestions. He also thanks Shigeo Aki for his comments on physical random numbers.

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