This is an updated version of the Structural Equation Modeling (PSYC 520T) I taught at California State University, Fullerton in the Spring of 2008 that was inspired by Fred Bryant's Structural Equation Modeling course (PSYC 525) at Loyola University Chicago in the spring of 2001. This time, I'm using lavaan in R rather than LISREL and I've swapped Kline and Bollen for which is the required and which is the recommended text. It's also influenced by excellent "Mini Lectures" from Matthew Hesson-McInnis's Covariance Structure Modeling (PSY 445) course at Illinois State University from the Spring of 2025. All the mistakes are mine.
Texts
Required
Bollen, K. A. (1989). Structural Equations with Latent Variables. Wiley.
Recommended
Beaujean, A, A. (2014). Latent Variable Modeling Using R: A Step-by-Step Guide. Routledge.
Bollen, K. A. (2026). Elements of Structural Equation Models (SEMs). Cambridge University Press.
Other Required Readings
Tanaka, J. (1993). Multifaceted conceptions of fit in structural equation models. In Bollen, K. A., & Long, J. S., Eds. Testing Structural Equation Models (pp. 10-39). Sage. (pdf)
Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2019). Chapter 13: Principal Components and Factor Analysis. In Using Multivariate Statistics, 7th Ed. Pearson. (pdf)
Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2019). Appendix A: A Skimpy Introduction to Matrix Algebra. In Using Multivariate Statistics, 7th Ed. Pearson. (pdf)
Some Pages with Links to Data Sources
ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium on Political and Social Research)
FIU (Florida International University) List of Public Use Datasets
Daily Materials
Markdown files are .RMD files (they may refer to images, so modification may be necessary)
Rendered files are .HTML files. Google won't display them, but they will display if you download them and open them.
Occasionally, I use SPSS datafiles; they are the .SAV files. I also occasionally simply have R code; those codes exist in .R files.
Week 1 Day 1
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Week 3 Day 1
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Week 4 Day 1
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Week 5 Day 1
Sample Code Revision from Class
Week 5 Day 2
Week 6 Day 1
Files Mentioned in Recording
Measurement Invariance
Summed Scores vs. Using Loadings
Example Invariance Article
Week 6 Day 2
Week 7 Day 1
Week 7 Day 2
Week 8 Day 1
Review Day
Week 8 Day 2
Midterm Examination
Week 9 Day 1
Spring Break
Week 9 Day 2
Spring Break
Week 10 Day 1
Week 10 Day 2
Week 11 Day 1 (out of town, in lieu of class)
Sewall Wright Guinea Pig Article
Week 11 Day 2
Week 12 Day 1
Week 12 Day 2
Week 13 Day 1
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Week 14 Day 1
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Week 15 Day 1
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Week 16 Day 1
Final Presentations - Day 1
Week 16 Day 2
Final Presentations - Day 2
Homework
Homework #1 (Rendered, Key, Rendered Key)
Homework #2 (Rendered, Data File, Key, Rendered Key)
Homework #3 (Rendered, Data File, Key, Rendered Key)
Homework #4 (Rendered, Key)
Midterm Exam
Midterm (Rendered, Key)
Fit Statistic Articles for Presentations
Maydeu-Olivares, Ximenez, & Revuelta (2024) GFI
Pavlov, Maydeu-Olivares, and Shi (2021) SRMR
Notes on the Steiger and Lind (1980) Handout on RMSEA
McNeish & Wolf (2023) Dynamic fit indices
Applied Article Presentations
Principal Components Analysis: Soto, C. J., & John, O. P. (2017). The next Big Five Inventory (BFI-2): Developing and assessing a hierarchical model with 15 facets to enhance bandwidth, fidelity, and predictive power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13(1), 117-143. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000096 (pdf, .RMD)
Path Analysis: Wójcik, M., Neckar, J., & Niedźwieńska, A. (2022). Predictors of everyday prospective memory performance: A superiority in the execution of event-based tasks over time-based tasks reverses in real-life situations. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 11(2), 245–257. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0101872 (pdf, .RMD)
Path Analysis: Boateng (2025). Immigrants and the dying American dream: Longitudinal examiantion of the relationship between perceived discrimination and the future success of imigrants. Race and Justice, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/21533687251391688. (pdf, .RMD)
Some Publication on Principal Components and Factor Analysis I've Found Particularly Useful
Tabachnick & Fidell on Reporting EFA/PCA
Bryant, F. B., & Yarnold, P. (1995)
Revelle's "Psychometric Theory" Chapter 6
Some Useful References on Writing Up Structural Equation Modeling Results