Reddon, John R.Marceau, RogerJackson, Douglas N.2011-03-112011-03-111982Reddon, John R, Marceau, Roger & Jackson, Douglas N. (1982). An application of singular value decomposition to the factor analysis of MMPI items. Applied Psychological Measurement, 6, 275-283. doi:10.1177/014662168200600303doi:10.1177/014662168200600303https://hdl.handle.net/11299/101471Several measurement problems were identified in the literature concerning the fidelity with which the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) assesses psychopathology. A straightforward solution to some of these problems is to develop an orthogonal basis in the MMPI; however, there are 550 items, and this is a cumbersome task even for modern computers. The method of alternating least squares was employed to yield a singular value decomposition of these measures on 682 prison inmates. Unsystematic or sample-specific error variance was minimized through a two-stage least squares split thirds replication design. The relative explanatory power of models of psychopathology based on external, internal, naive, and construct-oriented measurement strategies is discussed.enArticle