Advice on Exploratory Factor Analysis

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) is a process which can be carried out in SPSS to validate scales of items in a questionnaire. The purpose of an EFA is to describe a multidimensional data set using fewer variables. Once a questionnaire has been validated, another process called Confirmatory Factor Analysis can be used. This is supported by AMOS, a ‘sister’ package to SPSS.