Abstract
MplusAutomation is a package for R that facilitates complex latent variable analyses in Mplus involving comparisons among many models and parameters. More specifically, MplusAutomation provides tools to accomplish 3 objectives: to create and manage Mplus syntax for groups of related models; to automate the estimation of many models; and to extract, aggregate, and compare fit statistics, parameter estimates, and ancillary model outputs. We provide an introduction to the package using applied examples including a large-scale simulation study. By reducing the effort required for large-scale studies, a broad goal of MplusAutomation is to support methodological developments in structural equation modeling using Mplus.
Notes
1 We note, however, that recent versions of Mplus store some estimates in a hierarchical data format (HDF) file amenable to direct importation by R or other software.
2 Mplus syntax and output are available in the MplusAutomation repository at https://github.com/michaelhallquist/MplusAutomation/tree/master/examples/lca_cfa_example.
3 Technically this is a latent profile model because the indicators are continuous, but we use the term LCA to encompass latent class models with both categorical and continuous variables.