Direct Schmid–Leiman Transformations and Rank-Deficient Loadings Matrices

Niels G. Waller ()
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Niels G. Waller: University of Minnesota

Psychometrika, 2018, vol. 83, issue 4, No 5, 858-870

Abstract: Abstract The Schmid–Leiman (S–L; Psychometrika 22: 53–61, 1957) transformation is a popular method for conducting exploratory bifactor analysis that has been used in hundreds of studies of individual differences variables. To perform a two-level S–L transformation, it is generally believed that two separate factor analyses are required: a first-level analysis in which k obliquely rotated factors are extracted from an observed-variable correlation matrix, and a second-level analysis in which a general factor is extracted from the correlations of the first-level factors. In this article, I demonstrate that the S–L loadings matrix is necessarily rank deficient. I then show how this feature of the S–L transformation can be used to obtain a direct S–L solution from an unrotated first-level factor structure. Next, I reanalyze two examples from Mansolf and Reise (Multivar Behav Res 51: 698–717, 2016) to illustrate the utility of ‘best-fitting’ S–L rotations when gauging the ability of hierarchical factor models to recover known bifactor structures. Finally, I show how to compute direct bifactor solutions for non-hierarchical bifactor structures. An online supplement includes R code to reproduce all of the analyses that are reported in the article.

Keywords: bifactor; Schmid Leiman; hierarchical factor analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1007/s11336-017-9599-0

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