LISREL

LISREL, which is an acronym for linear structural relations, is a statistical program package particularly designed to estimate structural equation models (SEMs). It can also been used for several other types of analysis, such as data manipulation, exploratory data analyses, and regression, as well as factor analytic procedures. In the past few decades, SEM has become an increasingly popular technique for the analysis of nonexperimental data in the social sciences. Among programs from which researchers wishing to apply SEM might choose, such as AMOS, EQS, Mplus, SAS CALIS, and RAMONA among many others, LISREL is arguably the most longstanding and widely used tool. Notably, LISREL has been the prototype for many later developed SEM programs. After a brief history, this entry discusses the LISREL model ...