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Data Collection, Control, and Sample Size

  • Chapter
Structural Equation Models

Part of the book series: Studies in Systems, Decision and Control ((SSDC,volume 22))

Abstract

Many questions in social sciences can only be addressed through individual perceptions, impressions, and judgments. A consumer’s willingness to pay for a product or service is a noisy signal, and the consumer has no obligation to follow through on a purchase intent, no matter how much the researcher might like to infer that “intention” is “action.” Such inherently unobservable constructs need to be modeled as a latent variable. Personal statements of intent, whether they are for purchases, good deeds, or other promises, can only be considered rough indicators; researchers like them because they are cheap and easy to collect by questioning the individual. But like confessions and New Year’s resolutions, intentions are pliable and yielding, and often mendacious. Psychologists have created improved polygraph protocols involving such questions over nearly a century; yet polygraph evidence is still not admissible in court. Obtaining truthful and accurate data from surveys and questionnaires is challenging and the quality of information is invariably lacking. Latent constructs that are of actual interest—ones that help us build theory—are often unobservable. The only way to understand them is through objective measurement of related constructs—the indicator variables.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    \( o\left({n}^{-1}\right) \) convergence implies that for the remaining terms v(n) go to zero faster than \( {n}^{-1} \); \( nv(n)\underset{n\to \infty }{\to }0 \).

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  1. Department of Information and Decision Sciences, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL, USA

    J. Christopher Westland

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Westland, J.C. (2015). Data Collection, Control, and Sample Size. In: Structural Equation Models. Studies in Systems, Decision and Control, vol 22. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16507-3_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16507-3_6

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16507-3

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