Computational Identification of Confirmatory Factor Analysis Model with Simplimax Procedures

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) refers to the FA procedure with some loadings constrained be zeros. A difficulty in CFA is that constraint must specified by users a subjective manner. For dealing this difficulty, we propose computational method, which best solution obtained optimally without relying on users’ judgements. The method consists of procedures at lower (L) and higher (H) levels: L level, for fixed number zero loadings, it determined both are zeros what values given remaining nonzero parameters; H level performed over different numbers provide solution. In procedure, Kiers’ (1994) simplimax rotation fulfills key role: under computationally used initializing parameters new called FA. task can easily using information criteria. usefulness proposed demonstrated numerically.