Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling With Multiple Disparate Nesting Structures

• In Event: Statistical Methods for Complex Multilevel Structures and Data Types

Abstract

Purpose
Despite the flexibility of multilevel structural equation modeling (MLSEM), a practical limitation many researchers encounter is how to effectively estimate model parameters with the types of multiple disparate nesting structures that commonly arise in education. We derive extensions to the Croon-based method of moments corrected maximum likelihood estimator for MLSEMs that maintain multiple disparate nesting structures. We then probe the consistency, variability and convergence of the estimator with small to moderate multilevel samples. The estimator emerges as a practical alternative or complement to conventional maximum likelihood because it often outperforms it in small to moderate multilevel samples in terms of convergence, bias, and variance. The proposed estimators are implemented in R and are illustrated through a multilevel mediation example.

Authors

• Benjamin Kelcey, University of Cincinnati

• Fangxing Bai, University of Cincinnati

• Yanli Xie, University of Cincinnati