Much Ado About Nothing-Or at Best, Very Little

摘要

Latent variable structural equation modeling has become the analytic method of choice in many domains of research in psychology and allied social sciences. One important aspect of a latent variable model concerns the relations hypothesized to hold between latent variables and their indicators. The most common specification of structural equation models includes latent variables with effect indicators, such that a given latent variable is presumed to influence each of its indicators; that is, a change in the level of the latent variable should occasion a change in each of its indicators. For example, if an individual's level of numerical facility increased across time, the expectation under the model is that each of the indicators of numerical facility would exhibit a corresponding increase.