结构方程模型之旅游研究近况——理性回顾、审视与反思

基于中国期刊全文数据库(CPFD)和外文期刊数据库Elsevier Science Direct Databases (ESDD)检索到的相关旅游论文,文章分析了学术期刊文献反映出的结构方程模型(SEM)的旅游相关研究与应用概况,对近期(指2008年至今)SEM在国内外旅游中的研究内容与重要发现进行了回顾,对该方面表现出的国内外差异进行了反思,并从方法论的视角对SEM近期在国内外旅游研究应用中显现出的问题进行了理性审视,以期明晰SEM的旅游研究概况,揭示其近期国内外应用现状及异同,为更加科学恰当的应用该方法提供基础的理论参考.

The Application of Structural Equation Modeling in Tourism Research:A Review,Reflection and Examination

Structure Equation Modeling(SEM) is one of the best and hot tourism research methods or methodologies.It has got broad concerns and has actually obtained many applications in tourism research in the past few years.The trend and its own advantages all suggest a very broad application prospect in tourism research in the future.Currently,among the related tourism researches,the overwhelming majority are just application.However,there are scarcely any systematic reviews on topics and findings of the research adopting SEM approach.Another issue that has been ignored is that some problems arose with the increase of its application,which calls for a review of its use. Based on journal articles from Chinese Periodical Full-text Databases(CPFD) and Elsevier Science Direct Databases(ESDD),the progress and state-of-the-art of SEM application in tourism research are discussed,the topics/questions and important findings are reviewed of tourism research recently conducted in China and abroad,so are the similarities and differences of using SEM compared between the two community of users.The inappropriate aspects of SEM applications were also rationally examined and critiqued from methodology perspective. From the published academic literature,we can see that overseas scholars precede domestic ones in applying SEM in tourism research,but the gap is narrowing.Since 2007,especially after 2009,SEM has apparently attracted a lot of tourism researchers than ever before,both at home and abroad. Through this review,we come to the conclusion that: 1) One way to gain reliable tourism knowledge is to combine Exploratory Factor Analysis(generally through Principal Component Analysis) with Confirmatory Factor Analysis,which is widely used by both Chinese and overseas researchers using SEM.2) Tourist′ "Psychology/behavior" is the main research subject of the tourism articles that use SEM recently;among them,"tourist′ travel intentions and decisions" as well as "relationships amongst perception→satisfaction→loyalty/behavioral intentions" become the hottest topic.Both Chinese and overseas tourism research show the same characteristics,albeit more obvious amongst Chinese researchers.3) Comparatively,overseas tourism research adopting SEM are more often from the perspective of enterprises.However,Chinese research are more likely to take the perspective of the tourism industry.That is to say,foreign research pays more attention to microscopic study,while Chinese researchers are more inclined to macroscopic investigation. In application of SEM,the common problems that exist in both Chinese and overseas tourism research are mainly characteristic of the following.1) The sample size is less than the minimum requirement of SEM application.2) The reliability and validity tests are not given adequate attention.3) The professional software used for analysis and methods for estimating model parameters are not clearly described,nor is it confirmed whether the data meet the conditions of the estimate method.4) No explicit qualitative grade standards of SEM variable relations are provided.5) Standard graphic expressions in path diagrams are not used.6) Some reproducibility studies exist in the Chinese set of articles,while this phenomenon rarely occurs in overseas tourism research. The purpose of this paper was to review the progress and recent application status of SEM in tourism research,to compare and contrast the similarities and differences of its use in Chinese and oversea tourism research,and to provide a point of reference for tourism researchers to more scientifically and appropriately apply SEM in future research.