Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Abstract Measures that are reliable, valid, and can be used across diverse populations are vital to social work research, but the development of new measures is an expensive and time-consuming process. An array of existing measures can provide a cost-effective alternative, but in order to take this expedient step with confidence, researchers must ensure that the existing measure is appropriate for the new study. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is one of the ways to do so. CFA has four primary functions—psychometric evaluation of measures, construct validation, testing method effects, and testing measurement invariance. This book provides an overview of the method, step-by-step guides to creating a CFA model…