Structural equation models comprise a large class of popular statistical models, including factor analysis models, certain mixed models, and extensions thereof. Model estimation is complicated by the fact that we typically have multiple interdependent response variables and multiple latent variables (which may also be called random effects or…

Data collected from surveys can result in hundreds of variables and thousands of respondents. This implies that time and energy must be devoted to (a) carefully entering the data into a database, (b) running preliminary analyses to identify any problems (e.g., missing data, potential outliers), (c) checking the reliability and validity of the…

The increasing use of ordinal variables in different fields has led to the introduction of new statistical methods for their analysis. The performance of these methods needs to be investigated under a number of experimental conditions. Procedures to simulate from ordinal variables are then required. In this article, we deal with simulation from…

A revised version of Kaiser's Measure of Sampling Adequacy for factor-analytic data matrices is presented. (Author)

Discusses sampling bias problems in the use of the greatest lower bound (g.l.b.) to reliability and offers explicit expressions for the second order derivatives. This yields closed form expression for the asymptotic bias of both the g.l.b. and its numerator. Illustrates the approach through a numeric example. (SLD)

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD's) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) surveys, which take place every three years, have been designed to collect information about 15-year-old students in participating countries. PISA examines how well students are prepared to meet the challenges of the future,…

This article reviews several basic statistical tools needed for modeling data with sampling weights that are implemented in Mplus Version 3. These tools are illustrated in simulation studies for several latent variable models including factor analysis with continuous and categorical indicators, latent class analysis, and growth models. The…