Stuive, Ilse

The multiple group method of confirmatory factor analysis for test construction

Ilse Stuive PhD
Department of Psychology
Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Groningen

Project: University of Groningen

Project running from: 1 September 2003 – 1 October 2007

Supervisors: Prof. dr H.A.L. Kiers, prof. dr J.M.F. Ten Berge, dr M.E. Timmerman

Summary:
This project deals with data analytic methods for assigning items to sub-tests of psychological tests. Two such methods exist. Some prior research indicates that the simplest of these (the Multiple Group Method) performs at least as well as the more complex one (Confirmatory Factor Analysis). An important purpose of this project is to verify
these prior findings in a thorough comparative study, based on application to simulated as well as real-world data. The Multiple Group Method will be evaluated further, and a generalization of the Multiple Group Method will be developed that allows for handling three-way data.

Date of defence: 13 December 2007

Title of thesis: A comparison of comfirmatory factor analysis methods.