Examining First- and Second-Order Factor Structures for News Credibility

The construct of news credibility has been of interest to communication scholars for decades, yet researchers have struggled to develop a measure of news credibility that demonstrates a reliable factor structure and construct validity. This study uses confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and discriminant analysis to evaluate Abdulla and colleagues’ (2004) measure of news credibility. Results indicate that although the factor structure of the measure is replicable, the measure exhibits significant concerns related to discriminant validity. A revised measurement model employing a second-order factor for the news credibility scale that eliminates the discriminant validity concerns is proposed, and the implications of second-order factors in measurement models are discussed.