Mediation Models for Longitudinal Data in Developmental Research

Abstract

Mediation models are used to describe the mechanism(s) by which one variable influences another. These models can be useful in developmental research to explicate the relationship between variables, developmental processes, or combinations of variables and processes. In this article we describe aspects of mediation effects specific to developmental research. We focus on three central issues in longitudinal mediation models: the theory of change for variables in the model, the role of time in the model, and the types of indirect effects in the model. We use these themes as we describe three different models for examining mediation in longitudinal data.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors wish to acknowledge the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network for furnishing permission to use a portion of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development data set. The study is directed by a steering committee and supported by NICHD through a cooperative agreement (U10) that calls for a scientific collaboration between the grantees and NICHD staff. We also wish to thank Nilam Ram, Denis Gerstorf, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful insight and suggestions.