6) As an expert in path analysis, you have been assigned to help a research team investigate the links between the personality trait of conscientiousness and academic grades. Theory and previous research suggests that conscientiousness positively affects grades only indirectly, via its positive effects on academic self-efficacy and learning engagement. The research team had invited 350 second year university students across a range of disciplines to a questionnaire session and asked them to report on their conscientiousness, academic self-efficacy and learning engagement. The team then accessed the average first year university grade (measured on a scale from 0-100) for these same students. The team now wanted to test a path model of these variables, as outlined above.

a) Draw a complete observed variable path model that could be tested using Jamovi, consistent with the theory outlined above by the research team. [8 marks]

b) How would the team calculate the indirect effect of conscientiousness on grades via academic self-efficacy? What statistical test could they use to test for the significance of this indirect effect? [5 marks]

c) One of the research team members suggested testing an alternative path model that specified that there was an additional positive pathway from academic self-efficacy to learning engagement. The team then ran this alternative model. What effect would adding this additional pathway have on the model degrees of freedom? [2 marks]

d) Assuming the alternative model showed no worse model fit than the original model, which model would typically be preferred and why? [3 marks]

e) On looking at the results, which showed that conscientiousness did significantly predict grades via an indirect effect on academic self- efficacy, one of the team members tested a further model with self- efficacy as the independent variable and conscientiousness as the mediator variable instead. In contrast to the first model, this showed a non-significant indirect effect. The team member then suggested that this proved that conscientiousness caused self-efficacy, which in turn caused academic grades. Why should we exhibit caution in this potential interpretation of the data? [7 marks]