Media Release

Mangaluru, May 21: The Research Committee of St Agnes College (Autonomous), organized a three-day national level workshop on Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) for researchers from May 18 to 20.

The inaugural of the workshop was at 10.45 am on Monday May 18. Dolan C Banerjee, member of the organizing committee and assistant professor, Post Graduate Dept of Commerce, compered the entire day’s programme. Sr Dr M Venissa AC, the principal, welcomed and delivered her message of the three-day workshop to the participants.

The inaugural was followed by a two-hour session on ‘Introduction to measurement and Scaling, Multiple Regression and Exploratory Factor Analysis – basics and applications'. The resource person, Shubharekha, dean administration of the college, is a highly experienced faculty of the Department of Statistics. She explored all the concepts and provided a clear understanding to the participants by working out the concepts practically using SPSS software. Dr Geetha Nazareth, Member of the organizing committee and head of the Department of PG Chemistry, rendered the vote of thanks at the end of the session.

The second day’s topic was on ‘Introduction to SEM - A Conceptual Framework’, where Dr M S Ramaratnam, associate professor, department of Management Studies, Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswati Viswa Mahavidyalaya, presented the concepts with examples and prepared the participants to the third day’s practical session on SEM. Dr Premanand, head of the Post Graduate department of Psychology compered the programme. Dr Hithakshi, HOD and assistant professor, department of Psychology rendered the vote of thanks.

On the third day Dr V Ramanathan, associate professor, department of Management Studies, Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswati Viswa Mahavidyalaya, conducted a practical demonstration session on ‘SEM Model Development’. With his vast and in-depth knowledge in the field, he was able to give a clear understanding of developing models using SPSS and AMOS software. He provided the participants with the necessary datasets to work out the exercises personally. The session was compered by Dr Neethu Suraj, organizing secretary of the workshop and assistant professor, department of Business Administration. Dr Saraswathi B S, HOD of Chemistry, thanked the resource person.

For the valedictory, Dr Ramanathan was the chief guest. He briefed the participants on how to go about with their research in the future with the knowledge gained from the workshop. Dr Hithakshi compered the programme and Dr Nancy Vaz, convener of the workshop, rendered the vote of thanks. The programme concluded with the National Anthem.

There were 135 participants from across India. The participants were provided with all the material presented at the workshop, related exercises, data sets and software. The participants provided very favourable feedback regarding the usefulness of the workshop for their research career. The whole programme was conducted using the Google Meet app.