Springer Longitudinal Research with Latent Variables

This book offers a detailed explanation of longitudinal research methodology with latent variables, and shows how this methodology is implemented in practice with current software and real datasets. Covers specific approaches, their histories and their uses. Review From the reviews:“In this volume the 19 contributors presents 9 papers which combine longitudinal and latent variable research. … The book addresses the great majority of researchers in the behavioural and related sciences, in academic as well as non-academic environments. It also addresses methodologists and statisticians, who are professionally dealing with longitudinal research, to provide standards for state of the art practices, and is very useful for PhD students in mathematical statistics or in biostatistics.” (T. Postelnicu, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1210, 2011) From the Back Cover This book combines longitudinal research and latent variable research, i.e. it explains how longitudinal studies with objectives formulated in terms of latent variables should be carried out, with an emphasis on detailing how the methods are applied. Because longitudinal research with latent variables currently utilizes different approaches with different histories, different types of research questions, and different computer programs to perform the analysis, the book is divided into nine chapters. Starting from (a) some background information about the specific approach (a short history and the main publications), each chapter then (b) describes the type of research questions the approach is able to answer, (c) provides statistical and mathematical explanations of the models used in the data analysis, (d) discusses the input and output of the programs used, and (e) provides one or more examples with typical data sets, allowing the readers to apply the programs themselves.