R: Moderated Nonlinear Factor Analysis

mnlfa {mnlfa}

R Documentation

Moderated Nonlinear Factor Analysis

Description

General function for conducting moderated nonlinear factor analysis (Curran et al., 2014). Item slopes and item intercepts can be modeled as functions of person covariates.

Parameter regularization is allowed. For categorical covariates, group lasso can be used for regularization.

Usage

mnlfa(dat, items, item_type="2PL", formula_int=~1, formula_slo=~1, formula_mean=~0,
   formula_sd=~0, theta=NULL, parm_list_init=NULL, parm_trait_init=NULL, prior_init=NULL,
   regular_lam=c(0, 0), regular_type=c("none", "none"), maxit=1000, msteps=4, conv=1e-05,
   conv_mstep=1e-04, h=1e-04, parms_regular_types=NULL, parms_regular_lam=NULL,
   parms_iterations=NULL, center_parms=NULL, center_max_iter=6, L_max=.07,
   verbose=TRUE)

## S3 method for class 'mnlfa'
summary(object, file=NULL, ...)

Arguments

`dat`	Data frame with item responses
`items`	Vector containing item names
`item_type`	String or vector of item types. Currently, only item types `"1PL"` or `"2PL"` can be chosen.
`formula_int`	String or list with formula for item intercepts
`formula_slo`	String or list with formula for item slopes
`formula_mean`	Formula for mean of the trait distribution
`formula_sd`	Formula for standard deviation of the trait distribution
`theta`	Grid of `\theta` values used for approximation of normally distributed trait
`parm_list_init`	Optional list of initial item parameters
`parm_trait_init`	Optional list of initial parameters for trait distribution
`prior_init`	Optional matrix of prior distribution for persons
`regular_lam`	Vector of length two containing two general regularization parameters for item intercepts and item slopes
`regular_type`	Type of regularization method. Can be `"none"`, `"lasso"`, `"scad"` or `"mcp"`.
`maxit`	Maximum number of iterations
`msteps`	Maximum number of M-steps
`conv`	Convergence criterion with respect to parameters
`conv_mstep`	Convergence criterion in M-step
`h`	Numerical differentiation parameter
`parms_regular_types`	Optional list containing parameter specific regularization types
`parms_regular_lam`	Optional list containing parameter specific regularization parameters
`parms_iterations`	Optional list containing sequence of parameter indices used for updating
`center_parms`	Optional list indicating which parameters should be centered during initial iterations.
`center_max_iter`	Maximum number of iterations in which parameters should be centered.
`L_max`	Majorization parameter used in regularization
`verbose`	Logical indicating whether output should be printed
`object`	Object of class `mnlfa`
`file`	Optional file name
`...`	Further arguments to be passed

Details

The moderated factor analysis model for dichotomous responses defined as

P(X_{pi}=1 | \theta_p )=invlogit( a_{pi} \theta_p - b_{pi} )

The trait distribution \theta_p \sim N( \mu_p, \sigma_p^2) allows a latent regression of person covariates on the mean with \mu_p=\bold{X}_p \bold{\gamma} (to be specified in formula_mean) and the logarithm of the standard deviation \log \sigma_p=\bold{Z}_p \bold{\delta} (to be specified in formula_sd). Item intercepts and item slopes can be moderated by person covariates, i.e. a_{pi}=\bold{W}_{pi} \bold{\alpha}_i and b_{pi}=\bold{V}_{pi} \bold{\beta}_i . Regularization on (some of) the \bold{\alpha}_i or \bold{\beta}_i parameters is allowed.

The model is estimated using an EM algorithm with the coordinate descent method during the M-step (Sun et al., 2016).

Value

List with model results including

`item`	Summary table for item parameters
`trait`	Summary table for trait parameters

References

Curran, P. J., McGinley, J. S., Bauer, D. J., Hussong, A. M., Burns, A., Chassin, L., Sher, K., & Zucker, R. (2014). A moderated nonlinear factor model for the development of commensurate measures in integrative data analysis. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 49(3), 214-231. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00273171.2014.889594

Sun, J., Chen, Y., Liu, J., Ying, Z., & Xin, T. (2016). Latent variable selection for multidimensional item response theory models via L1 regularization. Psychometrika, 81(4), 921-939. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11336-016-9529-6

Examples

#############################################################################
# EXAMPLE 1: Dichotomous data, 1PL model
#############################################################################

data(data.mnlfa01, package="mnlfa")

dat <- data.mnlfa01
# extract items from dataset
items <- grep("I[0-9]", colnames(dat), value=TRUE)
I <- length(items)

# maximum number of iterations (use only few iterations for the only purpose of
# providing CRAN checks)
maxit <- 10

#***** Model 1: 1PL model without moderating parameters and without covariates for traits

# no covariates for trait
formula_mean <- ~0
formula_sd <- ~1
# no item covariates
formula_int <- ~1
formula_slo <- ~1

mod1 <- mnlfa::mnlfa( dat=dat, items, item_type="1PL", formula_int=formula_int,
             formula_slo=formula_slo, formula_mean=formula_mean, formula_sd=formula_sd,
             maxit=maxit )
summary(mod1)


#***** Model 2: 1PL model without moderating parameters and with covariates for traits

# covariates for trait
formula_mean <- ~female + age
formula_sd <- ~1

mod2 <- mnlfa::mnlfa( dat=dat, items, item_type="1PL", formula_int=formula_int,
             formula_slo=formula_slo, formula_mean=formula_mean, formula_sd=formula_sd)
summary(mod2)

#***** Model 3: 1PL model with moderating parameters and with covariates for traits
#***   Regularization method 'mcp'

# covariates for trait
formula_mean <- ~female + age
formula_sd <- ~1
# moderation effects for items
formula_int <- ~1+female+age
formula_slo <- ~1

# center parameters for female and age in initial iterations for improving convergence
center_parms <- list( rep(2,I), rep(3,I) )

# regularization parameters for item intercept and item slope, respectively
regular_lam <- c(.06, .25)
regular_type <- c("mcp","none")

mod3 <- mnlfa::mnlfa( dat=dat, items, item_type="1PL", formula_int=formula_int,
            formula_slo=formula_slo, formula_mean=formula_mean, formula_sd=formula_sd,
            center_parms=center_parms, regular_lam=regular_lam, regular_type=regular_type )
summary(mod3)


#***** Model 4: 1PL model with selected moderated item parameters

#* trait distribution
formula_mean <- ~0+female+age
formula_sd <- ~1

#* formulas for item intercepts
formula_int <- ~1
formula_int <- mnlfa::mnlfa_expand_to_list(x=formula_int, names_list=items)
mod_items <- c(4,5,6,7)
for (ii in mod_items){
    formula_int[[ii]] <- ~1+female+age
}
formula_slo <- ~1

mod4 <- mnlfa::mnlfa( dat=dat, items, item_type="1PL", formula_int=formula_int,
              formula_slo=formula_slo, formula_mean=formula_mean, formula_sd=formula_sd)
mod4$item
mod4$trait
summary(mod4)

[Package mnlfa version 0.3-4 Index]