a multilevel structural equation model for dyadic data.docVIP

A Multilevel Structural Equation Model for Dyadic Data Jason T. Newsom Portland State Unversity I begin by giving a brief overview of latent growth models and multilevel regression (i.e., hierarchical linear models). Ive assumed some familiarity with both of these techniques, but Ive summarized them to illustrate their parallels in the case of repeated measures. I then proceed by proposing a (new, I think) structural equation model approach to hierarchical regression in the case of dyadic data. All comments and questions are welcome and encouraged (newsomj@). Latent Growth Curve Models Structural equation modeling (SEM) can be used to estimate individual growth curves by using repeated measures as indicators of two latent variables, an intercept variable (?0) and a slope variable (?1), called “latent growth curve models”. The interpretation of the intercept variable depends on how the loadings on the slope factor are fixed. For instance, one approach to defining the slope variable is to fix loadings to values 0, 1, 2, 3,4, . . . t-1. In this case, the intercept latent variable represents the initial value, because the first loading on ?1 is set to 0. One can also “center “ these loadings by setting the middle time point to 0 (e.g., -3.,-2,-1,0,1,2,3), giving the intercept factor the value of the average score across all time points [see here for a Figure showing the general model specification (with estimated loadings on the slope factor, discussed later)]. Mathematically, the latent growth curve model is represented by the following set of formulas: level-1 equation (measurement model): level-2 equations (structural model): yit is the dependent variable. The subscripts i and t indicate a measurement within an individual, i, for each time point, t. ?0 is a latent variable that represents the level-1 intercept, ?1 is a latent variable that represents the relationship between the time code and the dependent variable (i.e., the growth trajectory),