Path Analysis: Supplementary Procedures

Abstract

The first purpose of this paper is to indicate the circumstances in which path coefficients may be accepted as adequate guides to the relative importance of anterior (causal) variables in a path analysis. It is shown that weights in a regression equation may be regarded as indicators of importance, in the sense of determinants of proportions of variance, if the (projection of the) variate defined by the equation coincides with a principal component of the anterior variables. The second purpose of the paper is to illustrate the usefulness of employing generalized multiple regression (analysis by canonical correlations) as an aid in the interpretation of a path diagram. The discussion is illustrated by reference to the path analysis which appears in `Ability and Achievement' by Professor 0. Dudley Duncan.