ERIC Number: EJ799459
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2008-Apr
Pages: 31
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0027-3171
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
The Performance of Methods to Test Upper-Level Mediation in the Presence of Nonnormal Data
Pituch, Keenan A.; Stapleton, Laura M.
Multivariate Behavioral Research, v43 n2 p237-267 Apr 2008
A Monte Carlo study compared the statistical performance of standard and robust multilevel mediation analysis methods to test indirect effects for a cluster randomized experimental design under various departures from normality. The performance of these methods was examined for an upper-level mediation process, where the indirect effect is a fixed effect and a group-implemented treatment is hypothesized to impact a person-level outcome via a person-level mediator. Two methods--the bias-corrected parametric percentile bootstrap and the empirical-M test--had the best overall performance. Methods designed for nonnormal score distributions exhibited elevated Type I error rates and poorer confidence interval coverage under some conditions. Although preliminary, the findings suggest that new mediation analysis methods may provide for robust tests of indirect effects. (Contains 5 tables and 1 figure.)
Lawrence Erlbaum. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/default.html
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A