Structural equation modelling of complex sample survey : an application to brand signalling data

The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical analysis of complex sample data with regard to the biasing effect of nonindependence of observations on standard error parameter estimates. In a two-factor confirmatory factor analysis model, using real data, we show how the bias in standard errors can be derived when the nonindependence is ignored. We demonstrate that the standard error bias produced by the nonindependence of observations can be considerable and we briefly discuss solutions to overcome the problem.