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 Molly Kelton posted on Thursday, March 05, 2009 - 11:15 am
Hello there. I am trying to get some clarity on the Kaiser-Guttman (eigenvalue) rule for EFA. I have seen in the literature examples where the authors adjusted the cutoff downwards due to communality estimates inserted on the diagonal of the correlation matrix (the analysis was a principal factor analysis). I have also read an article that suggested it was not even appropriate to use this criterion at all in the context of common factor analysis. The Mplus Discussion boards seem to suggest that the standard cut-off of 1 is appropriate...

1. For an EFA of categorical data using the ULS estimator, is the eigenvalue-1 rule still appropriate?

2. If so, is it common - or does it make sense - for this criterion to suggest retaining many more factors than would be suggested by, say, requiring RMSR < 0.05 or a scree plot?

Many thanks in advance!
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Sunday, March 08, 2009 - 11:45 am
For background on these matters, the following article is helpful:

Fabrigar, L.R., Wegener, D.T., MacCallum, R.C. & Strahan, E.J. (1999). Evaluating the use of exploratory factor analysis in psychological research. Psychological Methods , 4, 272-299.

1. The eigenvalues that Mplus prints refer to the sample correlation matrix, so with 1's on the diagonal. The eigenvalue-1 rule is intended for such matrices.

2. I don't know how common it is but I prefer to use a scree plot coupled with interpretability. See also other methods in the above article.
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