Exploratory Factor Analysis with SAS

Factor Scores 101

Factor scores seemed to be cutting-edge back in the 1980s when the first author was beginning to take graduate statistics courses. The concept and practice extend back to the 1920s, although early on it was considered much less important than the determination of the actual factors themselves.[1] This practice developed as a rational response to the early practice of summing or averaging items on a scale to produce an overall score. Of course, summing or averaging items assumes that all items contribute equally to the latent score. EFA demonstrated convincingly very early on that not all items are equally good measures of a construct and, therefore, better items should carry more weight in estimating an individual’s score. ...