An Introduction to Latent Variable Models

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

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2. General introduction

   • B. S. Everitt

   Pages 1-12

3. Factor analysis

   • B. S. Everitt

   Pages 13-31

4. The LISREL model

   • B. S. Everitt

   Pages 32-71

5. Latent variable models for categorical data

   • B. S. Everitt

   Pages 72-88

6. Some final comments

   • B. S. Everitt

   Pages 89-93

7. Back Matter

   Pages 94-107

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Latent variable models are used in many areas of the social and behavioural sciences, and the increasing availability of computer packages for fitting such models is likely to increase their popularity. This book attempts to introduce such models to applied statisticians and research workers interested in exploring the structure of covari­ ance and correlation matrices in terms of a small number of unob­ servable constructs. The emphasis is on the practical application of the procedures rather than on detailed discussion of their mathe­ matical and statistical properties. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the most commonly used statistical concepts and methods, particularly regression, and also has a fair knowledge of matrix algebra. My thanks are due to my colleagues Dr David Hand and Dr Graham Dunn for helpful comments on the book, to Mrs Bertha Lakey for her careful typing of a difficult manuscript and to Peter Cuttance for assistance with the LlSREL package. In addition the text clearly owes a great deal to the work on structural equation models published by Karl Joreskog, Dag Sorbom, Peter Bentler, Michael Browne and others.

• Parameter
• factor analysis
• latent variable
• latent variable model

• Biometrics Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK

  B. S. Everitt

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