The past decade has seen a noticeable shift in missing data handling techniques that assume a missing at random (MAR) mechanism, where the propensity for missing data on an outcome is related to other analysis variables. Although MAR is often reasonable, there are situations where this assumption is unlikely to hold, leading to biased parameter…

Maximum likelihood is the most common estimation method in structural equation modeling. Standard errors for maximum likelihood estimates are obtained from the associated information matrix, which can be estimated from the sample using either expected or observed information. It is known that, with complete data, estimates based on observed or…