An Introduction to Latent Variable Growth Curve Modeling: Concepts, Issues, and Application, Second Edition [With CD]

A great second edition of a book that is easy to use. This book has proven to be very useful to graduate students learning Latent Curve Methods on their own as well as in a supportive classroom environment. The examples are well described and the theory is sufficient to inform almost any user. My students had success using every example then replicating that success with their own datasets.

This is an excellent book for anyone who wishes to not only understand the theory behind latent growth curve modeling but also seeing how it is directly applied in a number of situations. For a reader like me who depends upon the literature to help understand newer statistical approaches, a book like this is a breath of fresh air. The book presents very clearly how to set up a basic LGC model and includes other topics such as dealing with missing data, interaction effects and multilevel approaches to longitudinal data analysis. The appendix contains a number of example LGCM models in the software language of EQS, LISREL and AMOS. I most highly recommend this text for beginners and more advanced modelers alike!