Path Coefficient Analysis — path

Performs path analysis to determine direct and indirect effects of independent variables on a dependent variable. Essential for understanding yield contributing factors.

Usage

path_analysis(data, dependent, independent, digits = 4, verbose = TRUE)

Arguments

data: Data frame with numeric variables
dependent: Name of dependent variable (e.g., "yield")
independent: Character vector of independent variable names
digits: Number of decimal places
verbose: Logical. If TRUE (default), prints formatted output to console.

Value

List with direct effects, indirect effects, and correlation breakdown

Author

Lalit Kumar Rolaniya, ICAR-IIPR, Bikaner

Examples

data <- data.frame(
  yield = c(1200, 1350, 1100, 1450, 1280, 1380, 1220, 1400),
  pods = c(45, 52, 42, 58, 48, 54, 46, 56),
  seeds = c(8.2, 9.1, 7.8, 9.5, 8.5, 9.0, 8.3, 9.3),
  weight = c(32, 35, 30, 38, 33, 36, 31, 37)
)
path_analysis(data, dependent = "yield", 
              independent = c("pods", "seeds", "weight"))
#> 
#> ==========================================================
#>           PATH COEFFICIENT ANALYSIS
#> ==========================================================
#> Dependent variable: yield 
#> Independent variables: pods, seeds, weight 
#> Number of observations: 8 
#> 
#> --- Direct Effects (Path Coefficients) ---
#> 
#>  Variable Direct_Effect
#>      pods        0.5512
#>     seeds        0.4968
#>    weight       -0.0549
#> 
#> --- Indirect Effects ---
#> 
#>          pods  seeds  weight
#> pods   0.0000 0.4911 -0.0543
#> seeds  0.5448 0.0000 -0.0537
#> weight 0.5456 0.4859  0.0000
#> 
#> --- Correlation Partitioning ---
#> 
#>  Variable Correlation_with_Y Direct_Effect Indirect_Effect
#>      pods             0.9879        0.5512          0.4368
#>     seeds             0.9880        0.4968          0.4912
#>    weight             0.9766       -0.0549          1.0315
#> 
#> --- Model Summary ---
#> R-squared: 0.9818 
#> Residual effect: 0.1351 
#> ==========================================================