A factor that affects only one of many measured variables and cannot explain the correlations between them is called what?

A factor that affects only one of many measured variables and cannot explain the correlations between them is called what?

• A. Univariate
• B. Upper quartile
• C. Validity
• D. Unique factor

Answer: (D)

In factor analysis, variance is split into two parts: what two or more variables share (common variance) and what is unique to each variable (unique or specific variance). A factor that affects only one observed variable is a unique factor. Because correlations among variables come from shared, common variance, a unique factor cannot explain those correlations—it only adds variance to that single variable. The other terms don’t describe this idea: univariate refers to one variable, upper quartile is a descriptive statistic, and validity concerns whether a measure actually assesses what it’s intended to.

In factor analysis, variance is split into two parts: what two or more variables share (common variance) and what is unique to each variable (unique or specific variance). A factor that affects only one observed variable is a unique factor. Because correlations among variables come from shared, common variance, a unique factor cannot explain those correlations—it only adds variance to that single variable. The other terms don’t describe this idea: univariate refers to one variable, upper quartile is a descriptive statistic, and validity concerns whether a measure actually assesses what it’s intended to.