Comparar métodos

	Análisis Factorial Exploratorio (AFE)	Análisis de Mediación	Modelado multinivel
Campo	Estadística	Estadística	Estadística para la investigación
Familia	Latent structure	Hypothesis test	Process / pipeline
Año de origen	—	1986	1992
Autor original	—	Baron & Kenny	Anthony Bryk and Stephen Raudenbush
Tipo	Latent variable / dimension reduction	Indirect effects / path test	Method
Fuente seminal	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.	Baron, R. M. & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(6), 1173–1182.	Bryk, A. S., & Raudenbush, S. W. (1992). Hierarchical Linear Models: Applications and Data Analysis Methods. SAGE Publications.
Alias	common factor analysis, açımlayıcı faktör analizi, factor analysis	indirect effects analysis, path-based mediation, PROCESS macro mediation, Aracılık Analizi (Mediation / PROCESS)	HLM, mixed-effects models, random effects models, MLM
Relacionados	4	5	3
Resumen	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.	Mediation analysis is a statistical procedure that tests whether the effect of an independent variable X on an outcome Y operates wholly or partly through a third variable M, called the mediator. Formalised by Baron and Kenny in 1986, it decomposes the total effect of X on Y into a direct path (c′) and an indirect path (a × b), quantifying how much of the relationship is carried by the mediating mechanism.	Multilevel modeling (also called hierarchical linear modeling, mixed-effects modeling) is a statistical framework for analyzing data organized in nested or clustered structures—students within schools, patients within hospitals, repeated measures within individuals. Developed by Bryk and Raudenbush (1992), it accounts for dependency among observations and partitions variance into levels (within-cluster and between-cluster), enabling valid inference and revealing context effects. Essential in education, medicine, organizational research, and any field where data have natural hierarchies.