This post contains a workflow that vastly speeds up the process of scale scoring and computing psychometrics such as Cronbach’s alpha.

The Fornell-Larcker criterion (Fornell & Larcker, 1981, p. 41) is a popular technique to check the discriminant validity of constructs in structural equation models. The criterion states that the average variance extracted (AVE) of items by a construct (factor) should be larger than the squared correlation of the latent construct with the discriminant construct.

The psych package for R provides great utilities for exploratory factor analysis (EFA). However, the way psych displays the results does not take advantage of visual cues to make grasping the factor solutions easier, nor is it straightforward to display the results in a way that can be shared easily with others.

Update 2022 Since the time since I wrote this blog post, a package has been developed that caulcates the multi-level reliability coefficient omega within R. See the function omegaSEM from multilevelTools.