An Integrated Structural Equation Modelling and Machine Learning Framework for Measurement Scale Evaluation—Application to Voluntary Turnover Intentions

There is an increasing demand for robust methodologies to rigorously evaluate the psychometric properties of measurement scales used in quantitative research across various scientific disciplines. This article proposes an integrative method that combines structural equation modelling (SEM) with machine learning (ML) to jointly assess model fit and predictive accuracy, limitations often addressed separately in traditional approaches. Using a measurement scale for voluntary employee turnover intention, the method demonstrates clear improvements: RMSEA decreased from 0.073 to 0.065, and classifier accuracy slightly increased from 0.862 to 0.863 after removing three redundant items. Compared to standalone SEM or ML, the integrated framework yields a shorter, better-fitting scale without compromising predictive power. For practitioners, this method enables the creation of more efficient, theoretically grounded, and predictive tools, facilitating faster and more accurate assessments in organisational settings. To this end, this study employs Covariance-Based SEM (CB-SEM) in conjunction with classifiers such as naive Bayes, linear and nonlinear support vector machines, decision trees, k-nearest neighbours, and logistic regression.