Future Directions

Abstract

Throughout this volume it has been our intention to lay the groundwork for future research by building simple models and operationalizing them via matrix algebra and LISREL scripts, which are available not only as hard copy in the appendices to this volume, but also as public domain software on Internet. We hope that placing these tools in the hands of the research community will maximize the quality and the quantity of analysis of human variation in as many areas as possible. A second hope is that researchers will be able to modify the prescribed models so that they test the most salient hypotheses in their field of study with maximum statistical rigor. To facilitate this process we shall (i) review the range of the existing approaches; and (ii) discuss strategies for extending them to new data structures. While a full description of these further methods cannot be given here, we aim to provide references to the relevant literature where available, and to indicate which software (if any) may be suitable for the application.