Whenever
factors are correlated, there is, naturally, a question as to whether
there truly are several independent factors or whether there is a
single “higher-order” factor. This
has been a point of discussion for many decades, and is often conceptually
and theoretically important. For example, is self-concept a single
thing, or several separate things? Is depression a single construct
composed of several subconstructs, or is it really not a coherent
construct?
Scholars writing in this area since the early 20th century have argued that when initial factor analyses (we can refer to these as “first-order” factors as they come from the first level of analysis) produce correlated factors, researchers should explore ...