Most of students of research methodology gets confused as to meaning of varimax rotation and its purpose in handling data for factor analysis. Can it be explained in a easy visual manner
VARIMAX is an orthogonal factor rotation method. It leads to uncorrelated factors. This is usually not plausible because factors in the social sciences tend to be at least somewhat correlated. Oblique rotation methods that allow factors to be correlated (e.g., OBLIMIN, PROMAX) are more recommended. See
Preacher, K. J., & MacCallum, R. C. (2003). Repairing Tom Swift's electric factor analysis machine. Understanding statistics: Statistical issues in psychology, education, and the social sciences, 2(1), 13-43.
The most commonly used method in principal component analysis for exploring the factor structure of a questionnaire is Varimax (orthogonal) rotation, which ensures the independence of the resulting axes.