Two-Part Factor Mixture Modeling: Application to an Aggressive Behavior Measurement Instrument

Abstract

This study introduces a two-part factor mixture model as an alternative analysis approach to modeling data where strong floor effects and unobserved population heterogeneity exist in the measured items. As the names suggests, a two-part factor mixture model combines a two-part model, which addresses the problem of strong floor effects by decomposing the data into dichotomous and continuous response components, with a factor mixture model, which explores unobserved heterogeneity in a population by establishing latent classes. Two-part factor mixture modeling can be an important tool for situations in which ordinary factor analysis produces distorted results and can allow researchers to better understand population heterogeneity within groups. Building a two-part factor mixture model involves a consecutive model building strategy that explores latent classes in the data for each part as well as a combination of the two-part. This model building strategy was applied to data from a randomized preventive intervention trial in Baltimore public schools administered by the Johns Hopkins Center for Early Intervention. The proposed model revealed otherwise unobserved subpopulations among the children in the study in terms of both their tendency toward and their level of aggression. Furthermore, the modeling approach was examined using a Monte Carlo simulation.

Notes

¹Formerly the Johns Hopkins Prevention Intervention Research Center.

²The 10 items are Stubborn, Break rules, Harms others and property, Breaks things, Yells at others, Take others' property, Fights, Lies, Teases classmates, and Trouble accepting authority.

³A minimum of 100 initial stage random sets of starting values and a minimum of 10 final stage optimizations were chosen for each step.