The Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement, Fourth Edition (WJ IV ACH) is purported to align with Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory and offers upward of 20 scores within its interpretive and scoring system. The Technical Manual does not furnish validity evidence for the scores reported by the scoring system, suggesting that evidentiary support may…

In this study we investigated the internal factor structure of a large-scale K--12 assessment of English language proficiency (ELP) using samples of fourth- and eighth-grade English learners (ELs) in one state. While U.S. schools are mandated to measure students' ELP in four language domains (listening, reading, speaking, and writing), some ELP…

This study assessed the factor structure of the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC®) Listening and Reading test, and its invariance across subgroups of test-takers. The subgroups were defined by (a) gender, (b) age, (c) employment status, (d) time spent studying English, and (e) having lived in a country where English is the…

This study examined the factor structure of the listening and reading sections of the revised Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC[R]) test. The data from the TOEIC IP (institutional program) test taken by 569 English learners were randomly split into two samples (n = 285 vs. 284). Four models (higher-order, correlated,…

Rotation is used in almost all exploratory factor analysis (EFA) studies. There are numerous rotation strategies that can be employed in these various applications. This paper reviews the various rotation choices in EFA studies, including confirmatory rotation, and presents criteria useful in selecting rotation methods in various analytic…

The paper is a critique of the traditional mode of interpreting factor analyses; it is not a criticism of factor analysis per se. Instead, the author proposes a statistical procedure based upon stepwise regression (SRP). The traditional mode focuses on the largest factor loadings (FL). A factor is both described and named by these heavily weighted…

Item overlap coefficient (IOC) formulas are discussed, providing six warnings about their calculation and interpretation and some explanations of why item overlap influences the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory factor structures. (SLD)

Academic psychology has long been composed of two disciplines, one experimental and one correlational. These two disciplines each developed their own method of studying structure in data: multidimensional scaling (MDS) and factor analysis. Both methods use similar kinds of input data, proximity measures on object pairs. Both represent the object…

Factor analyses of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) have typically yielded three factors: two generally understood to reflect basic verbal and performance dimensions and one about which there is no consensus with regard to what is measured. The aim of the present study is to elaborate the meaning of the third factor by…

The main import of the present paper is to discuss what Guttman facet design and analysis is and then to show how this technique can be used in attitude scale construction. Since Guttman is best known for his contribution to scaling theory known as scalogram analysis, a brief historical background is given to indicate how Guttman moved from a…

This paper conceptually explains higher-order factor analysis and methods for interpretation. A review of first-order factor analysis is presented that provides the foundation for the summary of second-order factor analysis. Higher order factors are derived from the correlations between the lower-level factors. An example study is provided to make…

Stephens et al. (EJ 055 112) committed a serious methodological error in holding chronological age constant in their IQ measures and allowing it to vary in their Piagetian developmental measures. This error is unrelated to differences in factor rotation methods used by these authors and was not answered in their reply. (CTM)

These authors cite their own study of the relationship between traditional measures of intelligence and Piagetian measures of cognitive development in support of Glass and Stephens' contention that there are important qualitative differences. They question Humphreys' and Parsons' conclusions on both substantive and factor theoretical grounds. (CTM)

Evaluations of social programs based upon quasi-experimental designs are typically plagued by problems of nonequivalence between the experimental and comparison group prior to the experiment. In such settings it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to isolate the effects of the program from the confounding effects associated with the…