A comparison of factor rotation techniques within exploratory factor analysis

In this study, it was aimed to examine different rotation techniques in exploratory factor analysis, which are frequently used to reveal the construct validity of measurement tools developed to measure psychological structures. For this purpose, it was decided to compare the most common upright rotation techniques in the literature, varimax rotation technique, the direct oblimin rotation technique, one of the oblique rotation techniques, and the promax rotation technique, which is both an orthogonal and oblique rotation technique. The data of the research consisted of the responses of 6890 students who participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 application from 186 schools in 12 regions of Turkey to 25 four-point Likert-type attitude items in the student surveys. In the analysis of the research data, the basic assumptions of exploratory factor analysis were first tested, and then the analysis was carried out with the help of principal component analysis (PCA). As a result of the analysis, a six-factor structure was obtained before rotation. Varimax, promax and oblimin rotation techniques were applied to the resulting structure. As a result of these investigations, major differences were observed between the structure obtained without rotation and the structures obtained after applying rotation techniques. While a complex structure emerged in the results without rotation, results consistent with Thurstone's simple structure were obtained after three rotations. The findings of the study revealed that although the load values of the items changed when different rotation techniques were applied, the factors to which the items belonged and the number of items in each factor remained the same. According to these findings, it may be recommended that researchers use a factor rotation technique that is suitable for the data group in the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) application. Keywords: Exploratory factor analysis, Factor rotation techniques, Promax rotation, Varimax rotation, Oblimin rotation