Causal Models in Educational Research: Recursive Models

Abstract

Causal modelling procedures developed in economics and biology provide social scientists with powerful methodological tools that permit them to bridge the gap between theory and research. In this paper one type of causal modelling technique involving a structural set of equations that are recursive in form has been used to reanalyze the data from two empirical studies that have appeared in the literature. The paper demonstrates how models of this form broaden the scope of the usual regression analysis.