Assessing the Factor Structure of Mindfulness, Mood, and Cognition Items in an Ecological Momentary Assessment Battery

In this study, I sought to elucidate the underlying multilevel factor structure of an ecological momentary assessment (EMA) battery of mindfulness, mood, and cognition items. In line with previous findings from literature, I predicted the multilevel factor structure that would best fit the data would have three factors at both the between- and within-person level: mindfulness, mood, and cognition. Additionally, I proposed alternate possible factor structures. I also hypothesized that the final factor structure would have good psychometric properties, including reliability, convergent validity, and measurement invariance. I conducted multilevel factor analyses on EMA data from n = 585 older adults (mean age of 71.5 years). After I tested the hypothesized factor structures via multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MLCFA), I used multilevel exploratory factor analysis (MLEFA) and then tested novel, un-hypothesized factor structures based on the MLEFA results. I determined two underlying factor structures with good model fit, both of which had three factors at each level (negative mood, cognition/mindfulness, positive mood/mindfulness). The psychometric properties of these factors were strong. Lastly, I examined prospective relationships amongst the factors and found significant autoregressive and cross-construct effects. The results of the current study support the utility of a novel EMA battery to index momentary mood and cognition, but not mindfulness.