introduction growth curves using mplus - onidpeople.oregonstate.edu/~acock/growth/2010 mplus...
TRANSCRIPT
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Alan C. Acock University Distinguished Professor of Family Studies &
Knudson Chair for Family Research & Policy Oregon State University
College of Health and Human Sciences Summer Workshop Series
July 2010
Introduction Growth Curves Using Mplus
A brief history LISREL (Joreskog and Sorbom) was being
developed in the late 1960s and released commercially in the early 1970s Originally relied on entering 8 matrices specifying
all the parameters that were being estimated or fixed at a certain value
Today has a graphic interface that generates the commands from a path diagram
Extremely capable alternative to Mplus
Alan C. Acock, July, 2010 Introduction to MPlus 1
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A brief history EQS (Bentler) was developed much later and
replaced the matrices with writing out a separate equation for each relationship
It now has a nice “Diagrammer”
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A brief history AMOS (now an SPSS product) was developed
based on a graphic interface
It has the slowest introduction of new capabilities
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A brief history--Mplus Version 6 April 2010 Version 5 November 2007 Version 4 February 2006 Version 3 March 2004 Version 2 February 2001 Version 1 November 1998
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A brief history--MPlus Very rapid development Late development allowed a non graphic
interface to be highly efficient Destroys the idea that a picture is worth
1000 words Develop statistical applications, not drawing
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A brief history--MPlus MPlus was developed during the 1990s
when growth curves were being introduced to social and behavioral sciences
Need separate drawing program, but this is best for publication quality Omni Graffle (Mac) for most figures here Office Visio or Open Office Draw (PC)
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A Brief History--Mplus
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Bengt Muthén is the statistician Linda Muthén is the language/interface/business Several people have contributed programming Economy of Scale idea is reversed Microsoft has 40,000 programmers so it takes a long time to
make a useful change Mplus has a couple programmers so it rapidly adds features Many new features are added between versions
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Buying Mplus
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Greatly reduced Student prices There are three modules (they apparently learned
this module idea from SPSS). You probably want all three
There is an annual maintenance and this lets you Get “free” support Get “free” updates I started with Mplus 3.0 and have only paid for
the annual maintenance fee ($175) since then
Resources for Learning Barbara Byrne. (2010). Structural Equation
Modeling with MPlus: Basic Concepts, Applications, and Programming. (Was to be available July 1
www.statmodel.com Large, 752 page, User’s Manual as pdf file Short courses on video There are 8 of these, each is one day long Download handouts to follow videos
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Resources for Learning www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/seminars/ UCLA has several online examples and videos We will utilize files from the Mplus manual for many
of our examples. These typically involve simulated data. Sometimes we well assign hypothetical variable names to make these somewhat realistic
Kline, Rex. (2010). Principles & practices of structural equation modeling (3rd ed.). N.Y. Guilford
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Introduction to the Concept
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Growth Curves are ideal for longitudinal studies Instead of predicting a person’s score on a variable (e.g.,
mean comparison among scores at different time points or relationships among variables at different time points), we predict their growth trajectory
We will present a conceptual model, show how to apply the Mplus program, and interpret the results
Once we can estimate growth trajectories, the more interesting issue becomes explaining individual differences in trajectories (why some people go up, down, or stay the same)
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Introduction to the Concept
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We will introduce growth curves for multiple groups such as comparing women and men
Time invariant and time variant covariates will be introduced Mediation will be introduced Develop your models incrementally
Start with a simple grow curve Add complexities one at a time
Sample data
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Data is from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth that started in 1997
We use the cohort that was 12 years old in 1997 and examined their trajectory for the BMI
Some may not like using the BMI on this age group, but this is only to illustrate an application of growth curve modeling
The following graph of 10 randomly selected kids was produced by Mplus
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Growth trajectory of 10 randomly selected kids
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Observations about these 10 kids
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A BMI value of 25 is considered overweight and a BMI of 30 is considered obese (I’m aware of problems with the BMI as a measure of obesity and with its limitations when used for adolescents)
With just 10 observations it is hard to see much of a trend, but it looks like adolescents are getting a higher BMI score as they get older
The X-axis value of 0 is when the adolescent was 12 years old; the 1 is when the adolescent was 13 years old, etc. We are using seven waves of data (labeled 0 to 6) from the panel study
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Observations about these 10 kids
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Clearly the kids have different intercepts. We need to consider if there is significant random variation in the intercept
It is less clear that the kids have different slopes. We can test to see if there is a significant random variation in the slope
The intercept and the slope might be correlated. Those who start with a low BMI might not increase as much as those who start with a high BMI
A figure for how MPlus conceptualizes a growth curve
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What’s in this figure?
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This figure is much simpler than it first appears. The key variables are the two latent variables labeled the Intercept growth factor and the Slope growth factor
The Intercept Growth Factor The intercept represents the initial level and is sometimes called the
initial level for this reason. It is the estimated initial level and its value may differ from the actual mean for BMI97 because in this case we are imposing a linear growth model.
When covariates are added, especially when a zero value on covariates is rare and covariates are not centered (household income)
What’s in this figure? The Intercept Growth Factor
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A straight line may over or underestimate any one mean including the initial mean
The intercept is identified by the constant loadings of 1.0 going to each BMI score
Some programs call the intercept the constant, representing the constant effect to which other effects are added or subtracted
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What’s in this figure? The Slope Growth Factor
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Is identified by fixing the values of the paths to each BMI variable. In a publication you normally would not show the path to BMI97, since this is fixed at 0.0
We fix the other paths at 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0. Where did we get these values? The first year is the base year or year zero The BMI was measured each subsequent year so these are
scored 1.0 through 6.0 Other values are possible. Suppose the survey was not done in
2000 or 2001 so that we had 5 time points rather than 7. We would use paths of 0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 5.0, and 6.0 for years 1997, 1998, 1997, 2002, and 2003, respectively
What’s in this figure? The Slope Growth Factor
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It is also possible to fix the first couple years and then allow the subsequent waves to be free
This might make sense for a developmental process where the yearly intervals may not reflect the developmental rate
Developmental time may be quite different than chronological time
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What’s in this figure? The Slope Growth Factor
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This has the effect of “stretching” or “shrinking” time to the pattern of the data (Curran & Hussong, 2003)
An advantage of this approach is that it uses fewer degrees of freedom than adding a quadratic slope and can fit better
Compared to a quadratic for a curve, this approach doesn’t require a monotonic function
What’s in this figure? The Slope Growth Factor
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You might use 0, 1.5, 2.0, 4.0, etc. to match the time differences for the measurements
Many national surveys take 6 months to administer so the baseline might be in January or it might be in June
A person might be measured at month 6, month 13, & month 30 (last at first wave, first at second wave, last at third wave)
Another person might be interviewed at month 1, 13, & 25
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What’s in this figure? The Slope Growth Factor
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Might use month rather than year for coding the wave First person would be coded 5, 12, & 29 Second person would be coded 0, 12, 24
Mplus has a feature that allows each participant to have a different interval which is important when the time between waves varies
TSCORE! This Mplus feature is underutilized
What’s in this figure? Residual Variance & Random Effects
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The individual variation around the Intercept and Slope are represented in Figure 1 by the RI and Rs. RI is the variance in the intercept around the mean slope RS is the variance in the slope around the mean slope These are what statisticians call the random effects
The value of the Intercept Growth Factor & the Slope Growth Factor is really what statisticians call a fixed effect—what would happen if every body was the same
We expect substantial variance in both of these as some individuals have a higher or lower starting BMI (intercept) and some individuals will increase (or decrease) their BMI at a different rate (slope) than the average growth rate
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What’s in this figure? Residual Variance & Random Effects
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In our sample of 10 individuals shown above, notice One adolescent starts with a BMI around 12 and three adolescents
start with a BMI around 30. Clearly there is a random effect for the intercept growth factor
Some children have a BMI that increases and others do not. Perhaps there is a random effect for the slope growth factor
The variances, RI and R2 are critical if we are going to explore more complex models with covariates (e.g., an intervention, gender, psychological problems, race, household income, physical activity, fidelity of implementation)
These covariates might explain why some individuals have a steeper or less steep initial level and growth rate than the average
What’s in this figure? Residual Variance & Random Effects
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What’s this about a random intercept model and a random coefficients (slope) model
A random intercept model would fix the variance of RS at 0.0 and let the variance of RI be free
A random coefficients model would let both RS & RI be free
We can estimate the model with both free Estimate the model with just RI free Estimate the model with neither free
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What’s in a figure? Random Errors
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The ei are random error terms We are usually fitting some functional form of a growth rate
such as linear of quadratic Some years may move above or below the growth trajectory A lot of error is eliminated when we have a random
coefficient model since some people may be systematically going up/down quicker than the fixed effect
The Mplus program for a linear growth curve
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What’s new compared to day 1?
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Usevariables are: subcommand to only include the BMI variables since we are doing a growth curve for these variables
We drop the Analysis: section if we had a single processor because we are doing basic growth curve and can use the default options. With multiple processors, this is included to tell Mplus how many processors to utilize
We have a Model: section because we need to describe the model. Mplus was designed after growth curves were well understood. There is a single line to describe our model:
i s | bmi97@0 bmi98@1 bmi99@2!! !bmi00@3 bmi01@4 bmi02@5 bmi03@6;!
What’s new compared to day 1?
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i s | bmi97@0 bmi98@1 bmi99@2!! !bmi00@3 bmi01@4 bmi02@5 bmi03@6;!
The i represents the intercept. We could enter intercept, start, initial, level, whatever
The s represents the slope. We could enter slope, growth, increase, change, whatever
A few words make a picture because of defaults Linda assume the constant of 1.0 for each year to represent the
intercept The slope is defined by fixing the paths from the slope to bmi97 at
0.0, the path from the slope at bmi98 at 1.0, etc.
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What’s new compared to day 1?
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A few words make a picture because of defaults Mplus assumes there is a random effect and makes RI & RS random
effects Mplus assumes the intercept and slope covary, i.e., cov(RI,RS) is
free to be estimated The intercepts for BMI97 – BMI 2003 are all assumed to
be zero. There is an implicit command [[email protected]] where the [] refer to the intercepts
Mplus assumes the means for the intercept and slope are free (fixed effects)
The errors, e97 – e03, are assumed free and uncorrelated. To correlate e97 with e98 we would add a command e97 with e98 !
What’s new compared to day 1?
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A big change from day 1 is to ask for a plot of the growth trajectory. This is initiated by Plot:
The type of plot we want for a growth trajectory is Plot3, Type is plot3;!
Mplus must know what to plot so we enter the variable used for our waves to define the series
The asterisk at the end of the series (*) is used to tell Mplus we are using the same values for the waves that we listed in the Model command, 0 – 5
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Selected Growth Curve Output—Missing
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Selected Growth Curve Output—Means
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You can see a steady increase in the BMI between 1997 and 2003 The rate of increase seems to be leveling off
Increases by 1.3 units between 1997 and 1998, by about 0.8 units between 1998 and 1999, but this gradually decreases to under 0.6 units between 2002 and 2003. A quadratic might work with a decreasing rate of increase over time Biggest problem for any definite functional form is the big increase between 1997 and 1998
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Selected Growth Curve Output—Correlations
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Correlations get weaker as waves get farther apart. BMI97 & BMI03 a bit high. BMI01 & BMI02 a bit high.
Selected Growth Curve Output—Fit
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Correlations get weaker as waves get farther apart. BMI97 & BMI03 a bit high. BMI01 & BMI02 a bit high.
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Selected Output—Estimates
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Growth curve is: BMI’ = 21.035 + 0.701×Year!
Selected Output—Res. Var & Errors
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RI = 15.051, the SD = 3.88. This is significant. About 95% of the kids have an intercept between 15.051 ± 2×3.88 or 7.29 and 22.81. This is fitting the intercept and not the actual mean at 1997 because we are using a linear growth curve. The initial mean was much higher. RS = 0.255, the SD = 0.50. About 95% have an increase in their BMI of 0.70 ± 2×0.50 or between 0.20 BMI units per year and 1.20 BMI units. Both seem like subsantial random effects
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Selected Output—Modification Indices
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Rarely one to free the intercept loadings of 1.1 even though that has a huge M.I. The M.I. = 37.34 for BMI03 with BMI97 suggests we are not fitting at both ends. A quadratic might be needed. We do NOT automatically free parameters that have a large M.I. Could improve fit with covariates
Graphic results
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Click on Graphs Observed individual values Set seed, random order, number of curves (20)
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Graphic results
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Most who started high show an increase (one dropped)
Graphic results
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Growth curve versus actual means GraphsView graphsSample & estimated means
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Quadratic Growth Curve
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Mplus program for quadratic curve
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Tests for Model Fit—quadratic vs. linear
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Quadratic—Selected Output
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Quadratic—Plot
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There is a good fit. The sample means and the estimated means are very close
Quadratic—Plot
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There is still significance variance (random effect) for both the intercept and the slope among individual adolescents that needs to be explained
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They say I need 3 waves, why have more: Information available with 3 waves
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3 waves of data: H1: model is called unrestricted 3 means My1, My2, My3 3 variances Var(Y1), Var(Y2), Var(Y3) 3 covariances Cov(Y1,Y2), Cov(Y1,Y3), Cov(Y2,Y3) 9 known statistics
Counting parameters--Linear
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3 waves linear growth curve needs 8
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3 waves of data: H0: model of simple growth curve A variance of intercept B variance of slope C covariance of intercept & slope D Mean of intercept growth factor E Mean of slope growth factor F,G,H 3 error variances 8 Total number of parameters you are estimating
With 3 waves we have 9 – 8 = 1 degree of freedom
4 waves gives huge increase in information
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3 waves of data: H1: model is called unrestricted 4 means My1, My2, My3, My4 4 variances Var(Y1), Var(Y2), Var(Y3), Var(Y4) 6 covariances Cov(Y1,Y2), Cov(Y1,Y3), Cov(Y1,Y4)
Cov(Y2,Y3), Cov(Y2,Y4), Cov(Y3, Y4) 14 known statistics
With 4 waves we are still estimating 8 parameters so we have 14 – 8 = 6 degree of freedom
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Alternative to Quadratic
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Instead of using 0,1,2,3,4,5,6 for linear component waves and 0,1,4,9,16,25,36 for quadratic component waves
Could use 0, 1, *, *, *, *! Could use 0, *, *, *, *, 1 If using months, e.g., 12, 24, 36 and want quadratic,
need to rescale, 36 square is 1,296. May divide by 10, e.g., 1.2, 2.4, 3.6 to keep scale of quadratic reasonable
These are not nested under quadratic so can’t test, can us BIC
Missing values
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Missing completely at random (MCAR) Missing at random (MAR) John is measured at waves 1, 2, 5 Sue (a part of refresh sample) is measured at waves 2, 3, 4, 5 Antoine is measured a just wave 1 Juan is measured at waves 1,2,3,4 Use all available information to estimate mean/variance for
each wave (Antoine gives information about wave 1) Use all available information to estimate covariances (John &
Sue do this for some, but not all covariances
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Missing values—Auxiliary Variables
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These variables are not part of your model but still serve two purposes
First they help predict the score on a missing value, e.g., education may not be relevant to your model, but it would help predict income
Second, they help meet the MAR assumption by explaining who does and who does not have a missing value. Gender is an example as men are more likely to skip items.
Observations have missing values on a random basis (MAR)—AFTER you control for all variables in your model and all auxiliary variables
Mplus has a simple way to add auxiliary variables
Full Information Maximum Likelihood with Auxiliary variables
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Full Information Maximum Likelihood with Multiple Imputation
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No values are imputed for missing values under the full information maximum likelihood approach, just means, variances, and covariances are analyzed
Although we will not show it here, Mplus can use multiple imputation It can use multiple imputation dataset from other packages
(Stata, SAS, etc.) It can do the multiple imputation itself starting in version 6
There is much debate about the best solution to missing values but it usually doesn’t matter and they are asymptotically equivalent
Multiple Cohort Extension
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Many national surveys will have multiple cohorts. For example, the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, 1997 began in 1997 with kids who were 12 to 18.
In year two these kids were 13 to 19, in year three they were 14 to 21, and in year four they were 15 to 22
With just four waves of data we can represent a growth curve for people from 12 to 21
Perhaps a study was discontinued at this point, but 3-years later they did it again The follow-up survey would have the people 18 to 25 Using five waves this way we would have data from 12 to 25—
transition from pre-adolescence to adulthood
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Multiple Cohort Extension
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Mplus uses the command, Data cohort to rearrange your data
We will not illustrate how this is done here but will show this in Stata on day 3
Multiple Cohort Extension
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Instead of organizing the data by age, it is organized by birth cohort
There is massive missing values. In their example there are 90 possible observations, but 50 of these are missing
This is MCAR unless there is a cohort effect such as people born in 1963 have a different set of historical circumstances than people born in 1964 or 1965
Muthén did this with a few waves of data to describe growth curves for drinking behavior from adolescence to mid 30s
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Multiple group comparisons
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Suppose we are interested in differences between Males and Females in their growth on BMI
We could treat these as subgroups and simultaneously estimate the model in both groups—Many comparisons:
Do they have the same intercept growth factor Same slope growth factor Same variance for intercept growth factor Same variance for slope growth factor Same covariance of intercept and slope residuals Same residual errors Same covariance of residual errors
Multiple group comparisons
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At the least we can test whether they have the same intercept growth factor and same slope growth factor (fixed effects comparison)
The problem with this approach to multiple group comparison is that it quickly becomes overwhelming
We will check the intercept and slope invariance here First, we estimate the model without any constraints (as
we’ve done before, however We will estimate it simultaneously for two groups
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Two group solution, same form only
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Two group solution, same form only
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We add our categorical variable to the Usevariables command. This is binary, but could have more categories
We tell Mplus how the data is grouped and add labels for each set of outcome
grouping is male (0 = female 1 = male);!
This simultaneously estimates the model separately for males and females and reports two sets of results with no invariance constraints
You do NOT need to sort data to do this
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Multiple Groups—Form only
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Multiple Groups—Form only
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Multiple groups: Different Intercept & Slope?
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Multiple groups: Different Intercept & Slope? There are two model statements
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Fist is an overall and describes the group with the lowest score on the grouping variable (females were 0; males were 1).
Second models the next higher score on the grouping variable, males. Don’t list things that stay the same Only list things that are different or That you constrain to be equal
Mplus puts the same number whenever it wants to force coefficients to be equal. When Mplus puts [] around a latent variable, it is referring to the mean. When Mplus puts [] around an observed variable it is referring to the intercept
The intercept and slope are forced to be the same in the two groups
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Multiple groups—equal I and s
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Multiple groups—equal I and s
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Multiple groups—equal I and s
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Multiple groups—equal I and s
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Although we can say there is a highly significant difference between the level and trend for girls and boys, we need to be cautious because this difference of chi-square has the same problem with a large sample size that the original chi-squares have
In fact, the measures of fit are hardly changed whether we constrain the intercept and slope to be equal or not. Moreover, the visual difference in the graph is not dramatic
We could also put other constraints on the two solutions such as equal variances and covariances, and even equal residual error variances, but we will not
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Alternative to Multiple Group Analysis
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Alternative to Multiple Group Analysis
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Enter the grouping variable as a predictor Males have a higher intercept and a steeper slope
Positive slope from male to intercept growth factor means males have a higher intercept
Positive slope from male to slope growth factor means males have a steeper slope
Limitations This imposes restrictions that everything else is equal for
females and males Same error terms, same residual variances, same covariance of
residual variances If those differences are important need the two-group approach
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Alternative to Multiple Group Analysis
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Alternative to Multiple Group Analysis
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Alternative to Multiple Group Analysis
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Alternative to Multiple Group Analysis
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Alternative to Multiple Group Analysis—Graphic representation
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We see that the intercept is 20.385 and the slope is .625. How is gender related to this?
For girls the equation is: Est. BMI = 20.911 + .656(Time) + .242(Male) + .086(Male)(Time)
= 20.911 + .656(Time) + .242(0) + .086(0)(Time)
= 20.911 + .656(Time)
Alternative to Multiple Group Analysis—Graphic representation
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We see that the intercept is 20.385 and the slope is .625. How is gender related to this?
For boys the equation is: Est. BMI = 20.911 + .656(Time) + .242(Male) + .086(Male)(Time)
= 20.911 + .656(Time) + .242(1) + .086(1)(Time) = (20.911 + .242) + (.625 + .086)(Time)
= 21.153 + .711(Time)
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Alternative to Multiple Group Analysis—Graphic representation
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Using these we estimate the BMI for girls is initially 20.911. By the seventh year when she is 18(Time = 6) her estimated BMI will be 20.385 + .656(6) or 24.847
Using these results, we estimate the BMI for boys is initially 21.153. By the seventh year it will be 21.153 + .711(6) or 25.419
Since a BMI of 25 is considered overweight, by the age of 18 we estimate the average boy will be classified as overweight and the average girl is not far behind!
We could use the plots provided by Mplus, but if we wanted a nicer looking plot we could use another program. I used Stata getting this graph
Alternative to Multiple Group Analysis—Graphic representation using Stata
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Note, When we treat the grouping variable as a predictor, as in this example, we only test whether the intercept and slope are different for the two groups. This is an interaction between gender and growth trajectory. We do not allow the other parameters to be different and do not test whether this is reasonable or not.
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Alternative to Multiple Group Analysis—Graphic representation using Stata
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Growth Curves with Time Invariant Covariates
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A covariate is time invariant if it is constant for the duration of the growth curve (gender, race, condition, etc.)
Our alternative approach using gender illustrates this It has been called conditional latent trajectory modeling
(Curran & Hussong, 2003)—the intercept growth factor and slope growth factor are conditioned on other variables
You could call this moderated growth trajectories with gender serving as the moderator
You could call this an interaction between gender and the growth trajectory
Here is a slightly more complex example
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Adding Time Invariant Covariates
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Adding Time Invariant Covariates
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Here we add two covariates White is coded 1 for white and 0 for nonwhites Emotional problems is a latent variable that was measured in
1997 (not any other year) There is a youth self-report of emotional problems There is a parent report of the youth’s emotional problems
Both covariates influence the intercept, linear slope and quadratic slope
The time invariant covariates moderate (interact with) the linear slope growth factor and the quadratic slope growth factor
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Program for time invariant covariates
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Program for time invariant covariates
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The Useobservations command restricts the sample to males who are not Asian nor Other on race/ethnicity
Emotional problems is a latent variable
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Program for time invariant covariates
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Mediation & Moderation with Time Invariant Covariates
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We are predicting the growth in drinking problems among adolescents
The amount of parental drinking may contribute to this Parental monitoring may contribute Peer influence may contribute These variables MODERATE (interact with) the trajectory. The rate of
change varies depending on these three variables
Parental drinking may be mediated by monitoring and peers If parents monitor their adolescent and there are positive peers
then the effect of parental drinking may be greatly diminished
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Program for time invariant covariates—Mediation & Moderation
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Note, the mediation modeled using the Model Indirect: subcommand
Time Varying Covariates
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Time varying covariates can be very important We might have a randomized trial with a treatment and
control group The trial might involve a four year intervention The treatment group should have a more positive trajectory
than the control group The fidelity of the program may vary from year to year
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Time Varying Covariates
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If the treatment is having a positive effect (positive trajectory), there might be annual variations around this trajectory, depending on the fidelity with which the program was implemented each year
Years of high fidelity might push the outcome variable above the overall trajectory;
Years of low fidelity might do the opposite These annual perturbations may be explainable by
corresponding variations in program fidelity
Time Varying Covariates
Alan C. Acock, July, 2010 95
0 1 2 3 4 5
Performance in Treatment Group
Baseline (0) was normal level of implementation, Year 2 (1) was a high level of implementation, but year 3 (2) and year 4 (3) there was a staff problem that resulted in a lower level of implementation. This was corrected in year 4 and year 5 as okay. These variations in fidelity of implementation pushed the score each year above or below the overall trajectory.
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Time Varying Covariates
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The error terms are correlated for adjacent years The W represents a vector of time invariant covariates that
moderate the intercept and the slope Intervention vs. control Gender
The Ai variables represent the time varying covariates Fidelity of implementation Peer group influence
The time varying covariates directly influence the Yi scores
Time Varying Covariates
Alan C. Acock, July, 2010 97
Might study decline in drinking behavior from age 22 to age 27
Slope is negative Time varying covariates might include: Drinking Behavior of Peers Work status (student to employed full time) Number of children Percent of friends who have children
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Time Varying Covariates
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