Structural equation modelling

This training course provides doctoral students with the necessary methodological tools for structural equation modelling (SEM). The course will be at an introductory level but offers advanced topics toward the end.The course will first provide an overview of key terms and potential applications of SEMs, before covering basic statistical principles and necessary steps to prepare data for SEM analysis. We will study two applications of SEMs in particular: confirmatory factor analysis and structural regression models. While the former focus on measurement (for example in political psychology), the latter also aim at explanations involving causal paths and as such have wide applicability in political science.
Students are encouraged to bring their own data to the session to complement the examples given. We will use the programming language R, specifically the lavaan package. At the end of this course, students will be able to undertake basic SEM analysis to answer their own project research questions.
Please ensure that you are familiar with quantitative methods as these will not be reviewed in detail.