Investigating the hierarchical factor structure of the Fifth Edition of the 16PF: An application of the Schmid-Leiman orthogonalization procedure

Two issues regarding the factor structure of the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) Fifth Edition were investigated: (a) unidimensionalit y of the 16 noncognitive scales and (b) hierarchical factor structure of th e inventory. The Schmid and Leiman orthogonalization procedure was applied to obtain a hierarchical factor solution in which multi-item composites wer e mapped directly onto first- and second-order orthogonal factors while sim ultaneously illustrating the relative positions of factors in the hierarchy . Unidimensionality was assessed using modified parallel analysis. The resu lts indicated that the noncognitive multi-item composites could be factored into 16 first-order and 5 second-order orthogonal factors.