Hi, 1st year PhD student in Psychology & very new to path analysis/SEM. The question came up during data extraction for a review/meta-analysis.

A 2-part question, b depends on part a I suppose:

Part a) Is it correct that a path coefficient is equal to the correlation when the dependent variable is a function of a single independent variable?

Part b) If yes, does this apply to the "a path" (from IV to Med) of a simple mediation model, i.e., when the mediator is a function of a single IV?

Thank you all for your help.