• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.133-151
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• 2007

The purpose of this article is to examine the effects of item parceling on the consistency of significance testing of the causal parameters with regard to the relationship between the relevant constructs, as well as the effects of the item parceling on the goodness-of-fit indices of LISREL's general models. Most of the researchers' major purpose of using structural equation modeling (SEM) is to test their research hypotheses associated with the causal parameters. Therefore, we investigated three general models of LISREL, rather than the frequently used confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) models by many other researchers. The results of the study showed that there was a high level of consistency in the calculated test statics of causal parameters between the item-parceled solutions and the item-level solutions, and that the item-parceled solutions had better goodness-of-fit indices, such as GFI, AGFI, CFI, and NFI, than the solutions at the item level. However, in terms of RMSEA, there was no such tendency.