DIGEST - Volume 11, Issue 3-FULL ISSUE

1 TPC Digest Michael T. Kalkbrenner Enhancing Assessment Literacy in Professional Counseling | TPC Digest P rofessional counselors oftentimes administer assessments and interpret the results of test scores to aid in diagnosis and treatment planning. A professional counselor’s utilization of instrumentation without psychometrically sound properties can have a number of negative consequences for their clients. This article provides a nontechnical overview for the layperson of the major types and extensions of factor analysis (a method for testing the psychometric soundness of instruments) and can serve as a reference for professional counselors who work in clinical, research, and educational settings. In testing and assessment, validity refers to the extent to which a test actually measures what the test developers claim it measures. Construct validity , more specifically, is a type of validity evidence for determining if scores on a test collectively measure the abstract trait that the test was designed to measure. Internal structure validity is one way to examine the construct validity of test scores by evaluating how, if at all, and in what ways the test questions group together to form scales or subscales. Factor analysis is a series of tests for evaluating the internal structure of test scores. The two primary types of factor analysis are exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). EFA is a test of how, if at all, newly developed or previously untested survey items group together to form subscales. CFA is a method of confirming the internal structure of an existing test with a new sample. Multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA) is an extension of CFA evaluating if the scales/subscales of a test have the same meaning with smaller groups of a larger sample. Higher-order confirmatory factor analysis is another extension of CFA for identifying if the relationship between a test’s scales is explained by a larger and more general variable. T he practical overview of factor analysis presented in this article can serve as a resource that professional counselors can refer to as a primer for teaching courses, a reference for selecting tests with validated scores for use with clients, and a resource for conducting their own research. Specifically, this article includes a flow chart for conducting/evaluating EFA research; a table for evaluating the strength of CFA results; practitioner-friendly descriptions and examples of EFA, CFA, MCFA, and higher-order CFA; and a table with both technical and layperson’s definitions of commonly used psychometric terms. Michael T. Kalkbrenner, PhD, NCC, is an associate professor at New Mexico State University. Correspondence may be addressed to Michael T. Kalkbrenner, Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, mkalk001@nmsu.edu . A Practical Overview of Factor Analysis