Σύγκριση μεθόδων

	Πολυμεταβλητή Διερευνητική Ποσοτική Έρευνα	Διερευνητική Ανάλυση Παραγόντων (EFA)
Πεδίο	Ερευνητικός Σχεδιασμός	Στατιστική
Οικογένεια	Process / pipeline	Latent structure
Έτος προέλευσης	1930s–1960s (foundational multivariate methods); codified in research design literature from the 1980s onward	—
Δημιουργός	Hair, Tabachnick, and colleagues (canonical synthesis); roots in Fisher, Hotelling, and Thurstone (early 20th century)	—
Τύπος	Quantitative research design	Latent variable / dimension reduction
Θεμελιώδης πηγή	Hair, J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., & Anderson, R. E. (2019). Multivariate Data Analysis (8th ed.). Cengage Learning. ISBN: 978-1473756540	Fabrigar, L. R., Wegener, D. T., MacCallum, R. C. & Strahan, E. J. (1999). Evaluating the use of exploratory factor analysis in psychological research. Psychological Methods, 4(3), 272–299.
Εναλλακτικές ονομασίες	multivariate exploratory design, exploratory multivariate analysis, multivariate data exploration, MEQ research	common factor analysis, açımlayıcı faktör analizi, factor analysis
Συναφείς	5	4
Σύνοψη	Multivariate exploratory quantitative research is a design in which researchers simultaneously examine multiple quantitative variables without imposing a predetermined structural model, using techniques such as exploratory factor analysis, cluster analysis, or principal component analysis to detect latent patterns, natural groupings, or underlying dimensions in the data. The goal is discovery and pattern recognition rather than hypothesis confirmation.	Exploratory factor analysis reduces a large set of observed variables into a smaller number of latent common factors. It is widely used in scale development and psychometrics to uncover the dimensional structure that underlies a set of correlated items, without specifying that structure in advance.