title: Comparison of alternative estimation methods in confirmatory factor analyses of the General Health Questionnaire.
abstract: This paper examines the implications of violating assumptions concerning the continuity and distributional properties of data in establishing measurement models in social science research. The General Health Questionnaire-12 uses an ordinal response scale. Responses to the GHQ-12 from 201 Hong Kong immigrants on arrival in Australia showed that the data were not normally distributed. A series of confirmatory factor analyses using either a Pearson product-moment or a polychoric correlation input matrix and employing either maximum likelihood, weighted least squares or diagonally weighted least squares estimation methods were conducted on the data. The parameter estimates and goodness-of-fit statistics provided support for using polychoric correlations and diagonally weighted least squares estimation when analyzing ordinal, nonnormal data.
authors.affiliation: Swinburne University of Technology, Melba Avenue, Lilydale, Victoria 3140, Australia.
authors.forename: Wei C
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Everarda G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Cunningham
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001315:Australia; D004641:Emigration and Immigration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016018:Least-Squares Analysis; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015233:Models, Statistical; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires