Customer Reviews

A Step-by-Step Approach to Using the SAS System for Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling

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This book does an outstanding job of taking someone that is somewhat rusty in advanced multivariate techniques and turning them into a conversant and competent modeler. Larry Hatcher uses plain English to explain what a technique may be used for, what the required SAS code is, what the output should look like, and how the output can be interpreted. I'd strongly recommend this book for anyone taking a structural equation modeling course or wishing to apply this technique in research.

I really needed this for my dissertation. As a computer scientist who is using statistically-based data mining techniques in my PhD dissertation, I needed a good "Quick Course" in factor analysis. More important than just "what is factor analysis", I needed to know how to implement my ideas in SAS. This book did the trick. Now let's hope my advisors think so. :)

This outstanding book was one of the mainstays for my Ph.D. dissertation. It explain factor analysis and SEM techniques in a clear and effective way, with an hands-on approach that guides the reader during all the data analysis and result interpretation phases.

While some passages are repetitive, on the whole, this book is very informative. The author leaves nothing to chance and is thorough in his explanation of various methods and how to reproduce them. The explanations by example are flushed out with no assumptions made about user knowledge, which was great in my case because before reading this book, all I knew about SAS is that it existed. Now, I can apply various and powerful statistical techniques on my own. Thanks Prof. Hatcher!

This is the single best statistics text I've ever read. It's extremely easy to follow, very practical, and gives outstanding examples. Everything is so clearly described in the book that one might call it Factor analysis and SEM for Dummies. I only wish that the book covered nonrecursive SEM models.

Very easy to read. Examples are simple and effective. The book explains the statistical concepts as well as the SAS programming tricks. In fact, the book provides complete code - you will be able to get good amount of analysis done just by copying that code. However, you also need to buy the "The Little SAS Book" if you never used SAS before.

This book is a pretty solid starter text to the topic at hand. It has thorough walkthroughs of the necessary components of factor analyses and SEM. In the more complex real world, of course, you may find that the confidence you've gained from going through this text falter a bit-- that's always the case with texts. However, it doesn't help that opportunities to expound on more complex, nonstandard models are glossed over. In fact, one of the published SAS programs in this area doesn't even run (I'm looking at you p.426), leaving me to wonder how thoroughly the author checked this last section of the book.

Still, I know more than I did before, and again, this is a great beginner's guide.

This book is an excellent guide for anyone wanting to learn factor analysis and SEM. It is clear and easy to follow. The sample SAS code is very helpful and the SAS printouts make it easy to follow along from your own data. Highly recommended.

MPH program does not teach SEM. However, I cannot emphasize enough how important public health researchers to learn this. I actually went to the director of my school and advocated to teach SEM to the students.

I basically learned how to use SEM using this book. It's easy to read and understand. All the syntax help you to practice. There is no complicated statistical words. If you want to learn SEM (which you should!) buy this one. You won't regret it. I just hope that every other SAS books are like this (which they aren't).

This is an excellent and easy to follow book. The information is listed sequentially.
if you are new to SEM, factor analysis and path analysis, this book will help especially useful if you are analyzing data with the SAS system.