Differences between Mplus and SPSS in... PreviousNext
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 Pan Wang posted on Friday, November 17, 2006 - 4:54 pm
When doing EFA using Mplus, especiallly the EFA of dichotomous vairables, are there any difference between Mplus and SPSS in their method? And if there are, what are the they?

Will the results in Mplus and SPSS differ a lot?

Thank you!
 Linda K. Muthen posted on Sunday, November 19, 2006 - 3:22 pm
I'm not sure that SPSS has an option to treat the factor indicators as categorical. And I don't know much about EFA in SPSS. For categorical outcomes and EFA, Mplus uses weighted least squares estimation. Both varimax and promax rotations are used.
 Oliver Arranz-Becker posted on Friday, April 30, 2010 - 4:57 am
Hi,
I have some questions concerning "odd" results in EFA in Mplus.
I recently computed a 3-factor model in Mplus and SPSS (for cross-checking) with 7 continuous indicators (same data, identical model specification and number of cases, both oblimin rotation). In SPSS, everythings fits the 3-factor structure well, with only negligible cross-loadings. In Mplus, one item has a large cross-loading that even exceeds the loading on the factor it is supposed to belong to. Also, the other indicator of the same factor has a loading >1 and a negative residual variance (although there is no error message in the output). Reducing the number of factors does not seem to be a solution because the 1- and 2-factor solutions both have a very poor fit. What am I supposed to do about this?
Also, can you tell me how Mplus obtains 3 degrees of freedom for the EFA? What are the underlying parameter restrictions?

Thank you for your advice,
Oliver
 Linda K. Muthen posted on Friday, April 30, 2010 - 8:28 am
Some programs fix negative residual variances to zero. We do not do this. For further information, send the Mplus and SPSS outputs and your license number to support@statmodel.com.
 Chantal Hermann posted on Thursday, May 12, 2011 - 9:33 am
Hi,

I have run an EFA using ULS and Promax rotation on 36 categorical items using both Mplus and FACTOR. The results are different? Do you know of any reason why this might be?

Thank-you for your help,
Chantal
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Thursday, May 12, 2011 - 6:34 pm
Already answered.
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