On the Exploratory Road to Unraveling Factor Loading Non-invariance: A New Multigroup Rotation Approach

Multigroup exploratory factor analysis (EFA) has gained popularity to address measurement invariance for two reasons. Firstly, repeatedly respecifying confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) models strongly capitalizes on chance and using EFA as a precursor works better. Secondly, the fixed zero loadings of CFA are often too restrictive. In multigroup EFA, factor loading invariance is rejected if the fit decreases significantly when fixing the loadings to be equal across groups. To locate the precise factor loading non-invariances by means of hypothesis testing, the factors’ rotational freedom needs to be resolved per group. In the literature, a solution exists for identifying optimal rotations for one group or invariant loadings across groups. Building on this, we present multigroup factor rotation (MGFR) for identifying loading non-invariances. Specifically, MGFR rotates group-specific loadings both to simple structure and between-group agreement, while disentangling loading differences from differences in the structural model (i.e., factor (co)variances).