EFA "validation"

The only thing I can remember you saying about the validation step of FA is that you hate it. Did you (or T & F) refer to it as something else along the way and I missed it, or was it not covered in class or the readings. It seems like it would go beyond the assessment of fit, variance explained etc. to an assessment of the factor / construct validity...

Actually, the idea of 'validation' (making sure that your interpretation of your factors makes sense relative to real life contexts) is a good idea...what I hate is that TF refer to it using the term "validation". In short, the idea of "validation" is actually much more extensive than that suggested by TF -- see Kane's chapter in this book for more on that. What I'm all for is checking to make sure that your factors behave like you'd expect them too in contexts beyond that of EFA. If you give people "MATH ACHIEVEMENT" factor scores, then these better correlate with other math measures you subsequently use as assessments for the same group of people, etc...Basically, do what TF suggests as 'validation', just don't call it 'validation'...said another way, you must do more than complete the TF "validation" steps before you can claim to have a "valid" construct measure.