Solved – Interpretation of Residual Covariance

rstructural-equation-modeling

I have recently begun using the Structural Equations Modeling (SEM) Method of confirmatory factor analysis for a research endeavor in educational science. My question is, suppose I have two latent variables each with many of its own manifest variables. If I observe a covariance between the two latent variables (I'm not sure if specifically what program I used to reach this point matters but if so I use the lavaan package in R), what does it mean?

I believe it means that it is a residual covariance indicating the presence of a common factor not shown by their predictors but I am unsure. If this is the case what would the level of residual covariance mean? i.e. is there a cut-off point where it could be considered statistically insignificant? Thank you!

Best Answer

It's a partial correlation. It represents covariance (or correlation) between the factors that is not explained by the predictors. It means that there are common causes that you have not included, or that the two factors are causally related.

There's no cutoff for statistical non-significance, other than the cutoff that you usually use (i.e. p < 0.05). You should probably leave it in, because (a) you don't care, (b) you're getting a degree of freedom for free if you take it out only when it's non-sig, and (c) if you take it out you are hypothesizing that you have included in your model every common cause of those two factors - and that seems unlikely.

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