Abstract
A new approach for using path analysis to appraise the verisimilitude of theories is described. Rather than trying to test a model's truth (correctness), this method corroborates a class of path diagrams by determining how well they predict intradata relations in comparison with other diagrams. The observed correlation matrix is partitioned into disjoint sets. One set is used to estimate the model parameters, and a nonoverlapping set is used to assess the model's verisimilitude. Computer code was written to generate competing models and to test the conjectured model's superiority (relative to the generated set) using diagram combinatorics and is available on the Web (http://www.vanderbilt.edu/quantmetheval/downloads.htm).
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 283-300 |
Number of pages | 18 |
Journal | Psychological Methods |
Volume | 7 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2002 |