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After conducting an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) in SPSS, which resulted in item reduction and a revised factor structure, what is the confirmatory process for specifying and validating this a priori measurement model within a CFA framework in AMOS?

I've completed an EFA for scale development, which reduced items and suggested a revised factor model. My committee now expects a CFA to formally test this a priori structure. I need clarity on the specific workflow to transition from SPSS to AMOS correctly, ensuring my specification aligns with the EFA results.

 

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By Junaid Answered 7 months ago

The confirmatory process begins by formally specifying your EFA-derived model in AMOS as a path diagram. I would recommend directly mapping the items to their hypothesized latent factors, fixing one loading per factor to 1 for scaling, and allowing the factors to correlate. Crucially, you are now testing this exact structure, not exploring. I have seen scholars err by using the same data; you must use a fresh validation sample if possible. Then, you assess model fit indices (CFI, RMSEA) to see if your a priori model is empirically supported.

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