Assessing Model Fit in Structural Equation Modeling Using Appropriate Test Statistics

Abstract

The assessment of model fit has received widespread interest by researchers in the structural equation modeling literature for many years. Various model fit test statistics have been suggested for conducting this assessment. Selecting an appropriate test statistic in order to evaluate model fit, however, can be difficult as the selection depends on the distributional characteristics of the sampled data, the magnitude of the sample size, and/or the proposed model features. The purpose of this paper is to present a selection procedure that can be used to algorithmically identify the best test statistic and simplify the whole assessment process. The procedure is illustrated using empirical data along with an easy to use computerized implementation.

Keywords:

• Structural equation modeling
• model fit
• bootstrapping

Notes

¹ Although mean structure is an important aspect of SEM, for ease of presentation in this article we focus mainly on covariance structure models.