Kelly,
I don't have anything to add specifically to your question but have
noticed some odd behavior in the factor analysis program, in particular
the factor analysis of a correlation matrix, though occasionally the
regular factor analysis program does strange stuff too. So you may be
bumping in to another issue.
This is annoying because I want to have students in my class use these
programs and inconsistent behavior of programs REALLY BUGS students.
If Statacorp people are listening, there are some suggestions I'd like
to offer that would make on top of "fix the bugs". Honestly, they're
really "take a look at the recommended practices discussed by the
foremost expert on EFA, Michael Browne" but I can list them out. Stata's
rotation commands are already quite good but the fact that standard
errors for loadings and other simple but important quantities aren't
listed. Also, I can't tell for sure (but believe) that the EFA program
analyzes correlation matrices, not covariances. Providing the option for
covariances would be useful.
Jay
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