TY - JOUR AU - AB - Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology 2013, Vol. 9(2), p. 79-94. A Beginner’s Guide to Factor Analysis: Focusing on Exploratory Factor Analysis An Gie Yong and Sean Pearce University of Ottawa The following paper discusses exploratory factor analysis and gives an overview of the statistical technique and how it is used in various research designs and applications. A basic outline of how the technique works and its criteria, including its main assumptions are discussed as well as when it should be used. Mathematical theories are explored to enlighten students on how exploratory factor analysis works, an example of how to run an exploratory factor analysis on SPSS is given, and finally a section on how to write up the results is provided. This will allow readers to develop a better understanding of when to employ factor analysis and how to interpret the tables and graphs in the output. The broad purpose of factor analysis is to summarize Factor analysis uses mathematical procedures for the data so that relationships and patterns can be easily simplification of interrelated measures to discover patterns interpreted and understood. It is normally used to regroup in a set of variables (Child, 2006). Attempting to discover TI - A Beginner’s Guide to Factor Analysis: Focusing on Exploratory Factor Analysis JF - Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology DO - 10.20982/tqmp.09.2.p079 DA - 2013-10-01 UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/unpaywall/a-beginner-s-guide-to-factor-analysis-focusing-on-exploratory-factor-32ZWJnl4sM DP - DeepDyve ER -