The article "Evaluating the Use of Exploratory Factor Analysis in Psychological Research" by Leandre R. Fabrigar, Duane T. Wegener, Robert C. MacCallum, and Erin J. Strahan reviews the critical decisions researchers must make when conducting exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and discusses the implications of these decisions for the results obtained. The authors highlight that poor choices in EFA can lead to problematic outcomes and that many researchers often make questionable decisions without fully understanding the consequences. They discuss the methodological issues in EFA, including study design, the selection of variables and samples, the choice between EFA and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the selection of model-fitting procedures, and the determination of the number of factors. The article also examines the pros and cons of different factor rotation methods and emphasizes the importance of considering theoretical and empirical evidence when making these decisions. The authors conclude by discussing the implications of current practices in EFA for psychological theory and suggest that researchers should be more cautious and methodologically rigorous in their use of EFA.The article "Evaluating the Use of Exploratory Factor Analysis in Psychological Research" by Leandre R. Fabrigar, Duane T. Wegener, Robert C. MacCallum, and Erin J. Strahan reviews the critical decisions researchers must make when conducting exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and discusses the implications of these decisions for the results obtained. The authors highlight that poor choices in EFA can lead to problematic outcomes and that many researchers often make questionable decisions without fully understanding the consequences. They discuss the methodological issues in EFA, including study design, the selection of variables and samples, the choice between EFA and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the selection of model-fitting procedures, and the determination of the number of factors. The article also examines the pros and cons of different factor rotation methods and emphasizes the importance of considering theoretical and empirical evidence when making these decisions. The authors conclude by discussing the implications of current practices in EFA for psychological theory and suggest that researchers should be more cautious and methodologically rigorous in their use of EFA.