How to Conduct Power Analysis for Structural Equation Models: A Practical Primer

Structural equation modeling (SEM) is popular, but planning for studies that use SEM for data analysis can be difficult. As power analysis becomes standard practice in many fields of psychology, researchers who use SEM for data analysis can benefit from knowing how to conduct power analysis for their studies. With this article, I offer a gentle, practical introduction to power analysis for SEM. First, I connect two goals that researchers often have when using SEM—to interpret the overall model and to detect target effects within the model—to power analysis. Then, I conceptually describe power to detect target effects and power to detect model misfit, summarizing what determines each and common approaches to conducting each type of power analysis. Finally, I provide an illustrative example of conducting power analysis for SEM with a concrete research scenario. Throughout the article, I prioritize plain language and practical guidance over technical depth, with the hope that it makes power analysis for SEM less daunting.