Skip to content

SEM/path question

5 messages · Erin Hodgess, John Fox, William Revelle +2 more

Erin Hodgess
# 
Dear R People:

Could someone recommend a "baby book" on path analysis and SEM, please?

Or if someone has an example that they use in the classroom setting,
that would be very cool too.

Thanks in advance,
Sincerely,
Erin
John Fox
# 
Dear Erin,

Although it's very old now, I like Duncan's Introduction to Structural
Equation Modeling (Academic Press, 1975); for a more complete treatment,
although it too is pretty old, Bollen, Structural Equations with Latent
Variables (Wiley, 1989). I have notes and other materials from a short
course on SEMs at
<http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Courses/Brazil-2008/index.html>. I feel
compelled to add that one should be very carefully about taking SEMs
seriously.

Regards,
 John
On
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
William Revelle
# 
Dear Erin,

I agree with John that one should be careful about taking SEMs too seriously.
For another good book on sem and path models, look at John Loehlin's book.


	Address = {Mahwah, N.J.},
	Author = {Loehlin, John C},
	Edition = {4th},
	Publisher = {L. Erlbaum Associates},
	Title = {Latent variable models: an introduction to factor, 
path, and structural equation analysis},
	Year = {2004}}

For baby sem examples, you might look at the vignette "psych_for_sem" 
in the psych package or some of the handouts at
http://personality-project.org/revelle/syllabi/454.syllabus.pdf

Bill
At 4:11 PM -0400 5/29/09, John Fox wrote:

  
    
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Spencer Graves
    

    

      
      #
    

  


  

      
Dear Erin: 


      I do not have a direct answer to your question, but the following 
quickly identified for me just now 244 help pages in contributed 
packages that mentioned either "path analysis" or "SEM", sorted to put 
first the package with the most such hits: 


pa <- RSiteSearch.function('path analysis')
hits(pa) # 193
sem. <- RSiteSearch.function('SEM')
hits(sem.) # 53
pa.sem <- pa|sem.
nrow(pa.sem) # 244;  only 2 mentioned both terms
HTML(pa&sem.)
# Open a web browser with links to the 2 in common
HTML(pa.sem)
# Open a web browser with a table linking to all 244,
# with the package with the most such pages first


      I also tried Wikipedia for "path analysis" and "sem".  The latter 
includes and "external link" to "sem package for R", which includes, "An 
Introduction to Structural Equation Modeling (November 2008, Programa de 
Computa??o Cient?fica - FIOCRUZ Rio de Janeiro - Brasil)", which 
includes further "Resources" and "Readings".  I have not used this 
myself, but John Fox, the author and maintainer of "sem" has substantial 
experience doing this in R.  "Old sources" in the CRAN page for "sem" 
lists 27 different releases starting with 0.4-1 in 01-May-2001. 


      If I wanted to know more about "path analysis" and "sem", I'd 
start with this material by John Fox. 


      Hope this helps. 
      Spencer Graves

        
Erin Hodgess wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Jarrett Byrnes
    

    

      
      #
    

  


  

      
I've enjoyed Jim Grace's Structural Equation Modeling and Natural  
Systems

http://www.amazon.com/Structural-Equation-Modeling-Natural-Systems/dp/0521546532/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243719710&sr=8-2

  as well as Rex Kline's  Principles and Practice of Structural  
Equation Modeling

http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Practice-Structural-Equation-Methodology/dp/1572306904/ref=pd_sim_b_9

        
On May 29, 2009, at 12:27 PM, Erin Hodgess wrote: