Monte Carlo Confidence Intervals for Complex Functions of Indirect Effects. Issue 2 (3rd March 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Tofighi, Davood; MacKinnon, David P.
• Is Part Of: Structural equation modeling. Volume 23:Issue 2(2016)
• Page Start: 194
• Page End: 205
• Publication Date: 2016-03-03
• Subjects: confidence interval -- mediation analysis -- Monte Carlo; Multivariate analysis -- Periodicals; Social sciences -- Statistical methods -- Periodicals; 519.535
• DOI: 10.1080/10705511.2015.1057284
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1070-5511

Abstract

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.