A Note on a Two-stage Least Squares Estimator for Higher-order Factor Analyses

Abstract

This article extends Bollen's two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimator to estimate confirmatory higher-order factor analysis models. This includes estimation of the higher-order and lower-order factor loadings and their intercepts. This 2SLS estimator does not require that the observed variables come from normal distributions, and it is less sensitive to specification errors than are the full information estimators. As such, this makes the 2SLS estimator a useful complementary estimator to the other full information estimators.