ABSTRACT
If one looks back over the last 100 years of longitudinal research in the social and organizational sciences, one finds that 1987 was a seminal year. Prior to that time, there was relatively little attention paid to conceptualizing and modeling change in constructs and processes over time. However, in 1987, two articles introduced to the masses statistical models capable of studying change. Bryk and Raudenbush (1987) introduced growth modeling via hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), and McArdle and Epstein (1987) introduced latent growth modeling (LGM) via structural equation modeling (SEM). These models are referred to generically as “growth models” because they originated from methods used in developmental and educational psychology (e.g., the study of human growth and develop ment), which in turn adopted methods from biology and agriculture (e.g., the study of plant growth).
