Estimating links between latent variables using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in R

Structural equation modeling is a statistical analysis technique used to analyse structural relationships between observed variables and unobserved latent variables, and can be used to estimate links between latent variables. The technique is most commonly used in the field of psychology, and is not well known in the field of mathematics. Literature on structural equation modeling often lacks mathematical formulation. In this work, the mathematical theory of the method is discussed and where needed mathematical formulation is introduced. This is done by discussing the five steps in which the method can be summarized. After analysing the mathematical theory of the method, we illustrate the method by applying it to collected data, and we interpret the results