Oblique Mean-Target-rotation

Oblique target rotation in the context of exploratory factor analysis is a relevant method for the investigation of the oblique independent clusters model. It was argued that minimizing single cross-loadings by means of target rotation may lead to effects of sampling error of the inter-correlations of the target rotated factors. It was therefore proposed to compute the mean cross-loadings for each block of salient loadings in the independent clusters model and to perform target rotation in order to minimize the block-wise mean cross-loadings. A simulation study based on correlated independent factor models revealed that mean oblique target rotation resulted in a smaller negative bias of the factor inter-correlations than conventional target rotation. Therefore, this method can be recommended when target rotation is performed in the context of oblique independent factor models. An R-script and an SPSS-script for this form of target rotation are provided in the Appendix.