Chapter 32 Week 6 - Formative test

A formative test helps you assess your progress in the course, and helps you address any blind spots in your understanding of the material. If you get a question wrong, you will receive a hint on how to improve your understanding of the material.

Complete the formative test ideally after you’ve seen the lecture, but before the lecture meeting in which we can discuss any topics that need more attention.

Question 1: A moderator is…

A third variable that changes the relationship between X and Y.

A third variable that explains unique variance in Y relative to X.

A third variable that causes both X and Y.

A third variable that explains why X and Y are related.

Question 2: When comparing two groups (e.g., experimental vs control group), which one of these is not an advantage of multi-group modeling (MGM) over single-group analysis with a dummy for group membership (dummy)?

With MGM, you can have different dependent variables across groups; with dummy analysis, you have only one dependent variable.

With MGM, you can have group-specific predictors; dummy analysis assumes predictors are equal.

With MGM, both groups can have unique residual variances; dummy analysis assumes homogeneity of variance.

MGM can account for measurement variance (latent variables do not measure the exact same thing across both groups); dummy analysis assumes measurement invariance.

Question 3: Which of these is not a risk of using modification indices?

Making modifications that reduce fit to the data.

Conducting exploratory analyses, but still presenting the findings as hypothesis-testing (confirmatory) research.

Overfitting the model; which means: modeling noise unique to the current dataset, thus improving the fit of the model to the current data, but reducing its generalizability and fit to future datasets.

Specifying paths that improve fit, but do not make theoretical sense.

Question 4: It is not possible to use multi-group analysis to investigate moderation with a continuous moderator.

FALSE

TRUE

Question 5: Modification indices indicate how much the Chi-square will increase when you fix this parameter to zero.

TRUE

FALSE

Question 6: Centering predictors in moderation analysis affects both model fit and model interpretation.

FALSE

TRUE

Question 7: According to Barron and Kenny, there are many ways to investigate moderation - but all of them can be specified as a structural equation model.

FALSE

TRUE