Testing Standardized Effects in Structural Equation Modeling: A Model Reparameterization Approach
Abstract
In structural equation modeling (SEM), statistical inferences about the model parameters are primarily limited to the testing of the unstandardized effects. This is because most SEM programs, such as AMOS, EQS, and LISREL, currently do not provide the estimated standard error for the standardized parameters. In behavioral sciences, testing the standardized effects is important, especially when the observed variables are measured by very different scales. In this article, a method based on model reparameterization technique is proposed for estimating the standard error of the standardized effect. Examples are given to illustrate how the proposed method is implemented using EQS. We will compare the results with that derived by Mplus, a more sophisticated software program which is able to compute the standard error estimate of the standardized effect in its latest version.