if the model is detectably misspecified. Akaike information criterion (AIC) An index of relative model fit: The preferred model is the one with the lowest Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a diverse set of methods used by scientists for both observational and experimental research. SEM is used mostly in the social and behavioral science fields, but it is also used in epidemiology, business, and other fields. By a standard definition, SEM is "a class of methodologies that seeks to represent hypotheses about the means, variances, and covariances o where k is the number of parameters in the statistical model, and L is the maximized value of the likelihood of the model. Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) Fit index where a value of zero indicates the best fit. Guidelines for determining a "close fit" using RMSEA are highly contested. Standardized Root Mean Squared…