Confirmatory factor analysis using Stata (March 2020) 

Hi there. Usually an error covariance in a model such as this is added based on some rationale; for example, you might do this based on the assumption that part of the correlation between two items is explained by a common method factor during measurement. Nevertheless, I included the covariance in this example simply to show viewers how to obtain it if desired. Cheers!

Hi there. One condition for your model to be identified is that the latent variables (and this will also go for the error variances) in your model to have a measurement scale. If one or more don't, then when you run your analysis you will find your parameters cannot be estimated (and you also get a message back typically that your model is 'not identified' or 'unidentified'; not sure the verbiage in Stata). There are two ways of establishing a measurement scale for latent variables (and error terms): fix the variance of the factor to 1 , or fix one of your factor loadings from your factor to an indicator to 1. If you do the latter, which is the more conventional approach, you are setting the measurement scale of the factor in reference to the indicator with the path coefficient fixed to 1. Again, all latent variables require a measurement scale, so that's why you see multiple paths in the model with 1's. The choice of which indicators should serve as reference indicators is up to you - although it is generally recommended that you choose to use indicators that are more reliable. But oftentimes programs and researchers end up picking the first item in a set to serve as an indicator of a factor (pretty arbitrary, right???). At any rate, you now know why the paths from the errors are pointed to the indicators and fixed to 1, as they are all setting the measurement scale for the errors. Hope this helps!

Hi there. Unfortunately, SPSS does not allow you to perform confirmatory factor analysis. You can use the SPSS add-on AMOS to do it though (or use some other SEM program). I have a few older videos on using AMOS if you want to see those demonstrations: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lleBuEEQXM4.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sjzoOLOhNUk.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OdBIJrGov_0.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rOeFJKrGhlM.html Best wishes!

Hi there, there is a link under the video description to a text document containing the code. I just refreshed the links as well.