Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the conceptual model depicted in Fig. 1. SEM is a collection of statistical techniques that allows researchers the ability to examine a set of relationships between one or more independent variables and one or more dependent variables. Independent variables can be either continuous, discrete or both (Ullman, 2001). SEM is similar to multiple regression, but with SEM more complex and multidimensional relationships can be examined. Furthermore, SEM is the only analysis that allows complete testing of all the hypothesized relationships simultaneously. For this reason, SEM was chosen as the analytic strategy for the current investigation (for a comprehensive discussion of SEM see Hoyle, 1995; Kline, 1998).
