Important attributes in many disciplines cannot be observed directly, and have to be measured by multiple indicators that are subject to errors. Structural equation modeling (SEM) has been a major tool for understanding the relationships between latent attributes and their observed indicators as well as those among latent attributes. This article provides a critical review of the statistical de...

This paper is a brief overview and evaluation of current mathematical/statistical causal models, including the structural equation model (SEM), TETRAD, and the graphical model. The efficacy of these approaches will be discussed in the philosophical context of the Duhem-Quine thesis, realism, simplicity, identifiability (testability), empirical adequacy, and probabilistic causality. The emphasis...

The problem of equivalent models has plagued researchers since the earliest developmental stages of structural equation modeling (SEM; Marcoulides & Schumacker, 1996). Equivalent models are those that provide the same sets of statistical fit indexes (e.g., chi-square and p values) as a hypothesized model but may imply very different substantive interpretations of the data (Stelzl, 1986). As a c...

The metaSEM package provides functions to conduct univariate, multivariate, and three-level meta-analyses using a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach via the OpenMx package in the R statistical platform. It also implements the two-stage SEM approach to conducting fixed- and random-effects meta-analytic SEM on correlation or covariance matrices. This paper briefly outlines the theories a...

One of the biggest problems in classical twin studies is that it cannot estimate additive genetic (A), non-additive genetic (D), shared environmental (C), and non-shared environmental (E) effects, simultaneously, because the model, referred to as the ACDE model, has negative degrees of freedom when using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Therefore, instead of the ACDE model, the ACE model or ...

Cost performance is the basic criteria for measuring success of any project. Since construction projects are highly dependable on resources, construction cost is significantly affected by various resource related factors. Compared to traditional methods of data analysis, Structural Equation Model (SEM) is the graphical equivalent of a mathematical representation to study relationship between de...