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Fornell-Larcker Criterion

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 2:34 pm
by Catharsis
Hello,

I am currently investigating some reflective research models with SmartPLS and had a few questions about checking the measurement model, specifically discriminant validity.

I would like to know if my Fornell-Larcker criterion is met. I'm not sure about the FC construct because the value on the diagonal is not greater than the values in the corresponding row. According to my assumption this should be so. Would be very grateful about clarification. Maybe I just misunderstood something.


Best regards!

Re: Fornell-Larcker Criterion

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 8:59 pm
by jmbecker
Fornell-Larcker criterion says that you diagonal value should be larger than all values in the same row and column. Thus, your EE and FC constructs are not distrinct based on Fornell-Larcker.
In addition, you should also consider HTMT criterion (smaller than 0.85) which is more sensitive to discriminant validity problems than Fornell-Larcker and the current state-of-the-art in PLS-SEM research.

Re: Fornell-Larcker Criterion

Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2019 6:35 am
by Catharsis
Hello Dr. Becker,

thanks for the answer. I followed your instructions, and it actually looks like there's a discriminant validity problem.

My question now would be how to solve the problem. Should I discard the weakest item from the construct (FC4) and recalculate the PLS algorithm? Or do you remove the whole construct directly in such cases? In this case FC? I have discarded the FC4 item as a test. The Fornell-Larcker criterion is now fulfilled. But the HTMT value does not improve.

Re: Fornell-Larcker Criterion

Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2019 6:53 am
by Catharsis
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Re: Fornell-Larcker Criterion

Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2019 8:28 am
by jmbecker
There are multiple ways that could solve a discriminant validity problem. Pleas search the forum and the literature for more information on that issue. It would need quite a lengthy answer to provide all possible options.