Confronta i metodi

	Analisi fattoriale esplorativa ordinale	Modellizzazione di Equazioni Strutturali
Campo	Psicometria	Statistica per la ricerca
Famiglia	Latent structure	Process / pipeline
Anno di origine	1978–1984	1921
Ideatore	Bengt Muthén	Sewall Wright
Tipo	Latent variable / dimension reduction	Method
Fonte seminale	Flora, D. B. & Curran, P. J. (2004). An empirical evaluation of alternative methods of estimation for confirmatory factor analysis with ordinal data. Psychological Methods, 9(4), 466–491.	Jöreskog, K. G., & Sörbom, D. (1973). LISREL: A general computer program for estimating a linear structural equation system. Research Bulletin 73-5. University of Stockholm.
Alias	ordinal factor analysis, polychoric EFA, categorical EFA, EFA for ordinal data	SEM, path analysis, latent variable modeling, causal modeling
Correlati	5	3
Sintesi	Ordinal exploratory factor analysis discovers latent factors underlying a set of ordinal items — typically Likert scales — by computing polychoric correlations among the items and then applying a weighted least squares estimator. It avoids the distortions that arise when continuous EFA methods are naively applied to ordered categorical responses.	Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a comprehensive statistical framework combining path analysis (Sewall Wright, 1921) and confirmatory factor analysis to test complex causal models linking observed and latent variables. Formalized by Jöreskog (1973) with LISREL software, SEM enables simultaneous estimation of measurement relationships (how variables measure latent constructs) and structural relationships (how constructs influence outcomes), making it powerful for theory testing in psychology, epidemiology, organizational research, and health sciences where complex mediation, moderation, and latent processes require integrated analysis.