Intensive longitudinal data has been widely used to examine reciprocal or causal relations between variables. However, these variables may not be temporally aligned. This study examined the consequences and solutions of the problem of temporal misalignment in intensive longitudinal data based on dynamic structural equation models. First the impact…

Measuring change in an educational or psychological construct over time is often achieved by repeatedly administering the same items to the same examinees over time and fitting a second-order latent growth curve model. However, latent growth modeling with full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimation becomes computationally challenging…

In multilevel multiple-indicator multiple-cause (MIMIC) models, covariates can interact at the within level, at the between level, or across levels. This study examines the performance of multilevel MIMIC models in estimating and detecting the interaction effect of two covariates through a simulation and provides an empirical demonstration of…

Researchers often collect longitudinal data to model change over time in a phenomenon of interest. Inevitably, there will be some variation across individuals in specific time intervals between assessments. In this simulation study of growth curve modeling, we investigate how ignoring individual differences in time points when modeling change over…

Just as growth mixture models are useful with single-phase longitudinal data, multiphase growth mixture models can be used with multiple-phase longitudinal data. One of the practically important issues in single- and multiphase growth mixture models is the sample size requirements for accurate estimation. In a Monte Carlo simulation study, the…

This study investigated the performance of fit indexes in selecting a covariance structure for longitudinal data. Data were simulated to follow a compound symmetry, first-order autoregressive, first-order moving average, or random-coefficients covariance structure. We examined the ability of the likelihood ratio test (LRT), root mean square error…

In this study, the authors compared the likelihood ratio test and fit indexes for detection of misspecifications of growth shape in latent growth models through a simulation study and a graphical analysis. They found that the likelihood ratio test, MFI, and root mean square error of approximation performed best for detecting model misspecification…

Growth mixture modeling (GMM) has become a more popular statistical method for modeling population heterogeneity in longitudinal data, but the performance characteristics of GMM enumeration indexes in correctly identifying heterogeneous growth trajectories are largely unknown. Few empirical studies have addressed this issue. This study considered…

Maxwell, Cole, and Mitchell (2011) demonstrated that simple structural equation models, when used with cross-sectional data, generally produce biased estimates of meditated effects. I extend those results by showing how simple structural equation models can produce biased estimates of meditated effects when used even with longitudinal data. Even…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of missing data techniques in longitudinal studies under diverse conditions. A Monte Carlo simulation examined the performance of 3 missing data methods in latent growth modeling: listwise deletion (LD), maximum likelihood estimation using the expectation and maximization algorithm with a…

Grade retention is an intervention that has received increasing scrutiny as policies, practices, and results of research diverge. This longitudinal study examines the reading growth trajectories of students (n=147) from first-through eighth-grade. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analytic procedures provide unique insights regarding the relative…

The purpose of this investigation was to test the age-related measurement invariance and temporal stability of the 13-item version of Antonovsky's Sense of Coherence Scale (SOC). Multigroup structural equation modeling of longitudinal data from the Canadian National Population Health Survey was used to examine the measurement invariance across 3…