Data in social and behavioral sciences typically contain measurement errors and do not have predefined metrics. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is widely used for the analysis of such data, where the scales of the manifest and latent variables are often subjective. This article studies how the model, parameter estimates, their standard errors…

Data in social and behavioral sciences typically contain measurement errors and do not have predefined metrics. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is widely used for the analysis of such data, where the scales of the manifest and latent variables are often subjective. This article studies how the model, parameter estimates, their standard errors…

Bayesian algorithms have been used successfully in the social and behavioral sciences to analyze dichotomous data particularly with complex structural equation models. In this study, we investigate the use of the Polya-Gamma data augmentation method with Gibbs sampling to improve estimation of structural equation models with dichotomous variables.…

This article is concerned with the question of whether the missing data mechanism routinely referred to as missing completely at random (MCAR) is statistically examinable via a test for lack of distributional differences between groups with observed and missing data, and related consequences. A discussion is initially provided, from a formal logic…

Uses a confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) model as a paradigmatic basis for the comparison of three widely used structural equation modeling computer programs: (1) AMOS 4.0; (2) EQS 6; and (3) LISREL 8. Comparisons focus on aspects of programs that bear on the specification and testing of CFA models and the treatment of incomplete, nonnormally…

Data in social and behavioral sciences typically possess heavy tails. Structural equation modeling is commonly used in analyzing interrelations among variables of such data. Classical methods for structural equation modeling fit a proposed model to the sample covariance matrix, which can lead to very inefficient parameter estimates. By fitting a…