Abstract
One challenge in mediation analysis is to generate a confidence interval (CI) with high coverage and power that maintains a nominal significance level for any well-defined function of indirect and direct effects in the general context of structural equation modeling (SEM). This study discusses a proposed Monte Carlo extension that finds the CIs for any well-defined function of the coefficients of SEM such as the product of k coefficients and the ratio of the contrasts of indirect effects, using the Monte Carlo method. Finally, we conduct a small-scale simulation study to compare CIs produced by the Monte Carlo, nonparametric bootstrap, and asymptotic-delta methods. Based on our simulation study, we recommend researchers use the Monte Carlo method to test a complex function of indirect effects.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 194-205 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Structural Equation Modeling |
Volume | 23 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 3 2016 |
Keywords
- Monte Carlo
- confidence interval
- mediation analysis
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Decision Sciences
- Modeling and Simulation
- Sociology and Political Science
- Economics, Econometrics and Finance(all)