PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Common model fit indices behave poorly in structural equation models for experience sampling data which typically contain many manifest variables. In this article, we propose a block-wise fit assessment for large models as an alternative. The entire model is estimated jointly, and block-wise versions of common fit indices are then determined from smaller blocks of the variance-covariance matrix using simulated degrees of freedom. In a first simulation study, we show that block-wise fit indices, contrary to global fit indices, correctly identify correctly specified latent state-trait models with 49 occasions and N = 200. In a second simulation, we find that block-wise fit indices cannot identify misspecification purely between days but correctly rejects other misspecified models. In some cases, the block-wise fit is superior in judging the strength of the misspecification. Lastly, we discuss the practical use of block-wise fit evaluation and its limitations.