Abstract

Taking previous international researches, that show how Explorative Factor Analysis (EFA) is badly used, as starting point (cfr. Fabrigar, MacCallum, Wegener e Strahan, 1999), the present research wants to investigate the use of EFA by Italian researchers. Our purpose is to find out if EFA is adequately known and used or not, in our country. All articles, in which there is an EFA published from 2000 to 2003 on "Giornale Italiano di Psicologia" (GIP), "Bollettino di Psicologia Applicata" (BPA) and "Testing Psicometria Metodologia" (TPM), are been analysed to answer this question. The results of the analyses have shown, in agreement with the previous international researches, that EFA isn't still used in an optimal way and that researchers prefer to use Principal Component Analysis (PCA) erroneously considering it a substitute for EFA. Moreover the researchers in the EFA use small samples and few variables (considering the number of extracted factors), they rotate factors and determine the appropriate number of factors always in the same way (in spite of lots of existing criterion). Finally researchers often don't include in their studies the psychometric properties of the variables.