The topic of this article is the interpretation of structural equation modeling (SEM) solutions. Its purpose is to augment structural modeling's metatheoretic resources while enhancing awareness of how problematic is the causal significance of SEM-parameter solutions. Part I focuses on the nonuniqueness and consequent dubious interpretability of…

The interpretation of a Thurstonian model for paired comparisons where the utilities' covariance matrix is unrestricted proved to be difficult due to the comparative nature of the data. We show that under a suitable constraint the utilities' correlation matrix can be estimated, yielding a readily interpretable solution. This set of identification…

An algorithm for obtaining initial values for the minimization process in covariance structure analysis is developed that is more generally applicable for computing parameters connected to latent variables than the currently existing ones. The algorithm is formulated in terms of the RAM model but can be extended. (SLD)