Ooooo, SEM!

Padilla-Walker, L. M., Hardy, S. A., & Christensen, K. J. (2010). Adolescent hope as a mediator between parent-child connectedness and adolescent outcomes. The Journal of Early Adolescence, (find it online, it's not in print yet).

I really enjoyed this article for its discussion on hope, but I really, REALLY enjoyed the article for its straightforward reporting on the SEM analysis. First, the authors laid out an analysis plan in the Method section, where they explained, step-by-step, the individual CFA models they would test, then the full measurement model, then how they would estimate the model parameters, and then which fit indicators and criteria they would use to evaluate the goodness-of-fit. Then, they very clearly explained the results in two sections: measurement models and preliminary analyses, and hypothesis tests using structural equation modeling. The article was a wonderful example of how sophisticated analyses support theoretical research, rather than detracting from it. If you explain what you're doing and why in such a clear way, any reader with some background in multiple regression can understand your results even if they don't know the specifics of writing a LISREL program.

9/10 Jetts. Minus one Jett for claiming, in the introduction section, that the model probably wouldn't differ as a function of age (probably wrong).