A cautionary note on the detection of method variance in multitrait-multimethod data

Method variance in multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) data is often assessed by comparing the monomethod-heterotrait correlations to the heteromethod-hereotrait correlations in the MTMM matrix. Alternatively, method variance can be assessed within a confirmatory factor analysis of the MTMM data. Is is shown that these two approaches are dissimilar theoretically and may give inconsistent assessments of method variance in practice

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