Missingness by design and FIML PreviousNext
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 Kristel Wouters posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - 1:02 am
I am considering to use a missing data design(3-form design of Graham (1996)) in my PhD-research. The design comes down to the use of 3 types of questionnaires in which there is always an overlap of ¾ of the items and ¼ of the items is present is all 3 types of questionnaires.

I was wondering to what extent Mplus is able to handle this missing data. I want to apply the missing data design on my IV's, which are dimensions of culture, measured on a 7-point likert scale. I was wondering whether Mplus uses listwize deletion for missings on incomplete independent variables ore uses full information maximum likelihood.

I read somewhere that I should make my IV's DV's. Is this only true if this IV is an observed variable?

For example:

Model:
belongness BY BE1 BE2 BE3;
egalit BY EG2 EG3 EG4 EG5;
persaggr BY ON38 ON39 ON40;
persaggr ON egalit;
persaggr ON belongness;

If I have used the missing data design on my IV's BE1 BE2 BE3 EG2 EG3 EG4 EG5, does Mplus use full information maximum likelihood and not listwize deletion on the independent variables? I think Mplus uses FIML in that case but I am not sure…

If egalit and belongness are observed variables, can I make them independent by adding the following to the syntax?
persaggr BY ON38 ON39;
persaggr ON egalit;
persaggr ON belongness;
egalit;
belongness;

Many thanks for your advice!
 Kristel Wouters posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - 1:04 am
Some additional questions.
- How much missings will Mplus be able to handle, or in other words is there a limit to the number of variables I can put in my design of missingness?
- Is there a requirement of a large realized sample? And how large should that sample be?
- Can I apply this design on my dependent variables (which are different kinds of unethical work behaviours, where the distributions of the items are often very positively skewed)?
- Are there any pitfalls I should be aware of by using this design and my analyses in Mplus? For example if I want to use WLSM?


Many thanks for your advice!
 Linda K. Muthen posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - 4:01 pm
The variables BE1 BE2 BE3 EG2 EG3 EG4 EG5 are dependent variables. FIML handles missing data for these variables.

The variables egalit and belongness are independent variables.

You would need to do a simulation study to determine how large of a sample is needed. There is not rule of thumb.

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 emmanuel bofah posted on Monday, July 14, 2014 - 9:33 am
I have data for three time points.
time1----time2-----time3

there are students in time2 not in time1 and students in time3 not in time2 and time1.
my question is how will mplus handle the missing data especially between time1 and time3.
second, is it advisable to use the students in all the data set or use only those on the three measurement time point. I wish to use all students in all measurement but i cannot conceive myself why i should i should.
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Monday, July 14, 2014 - 5:39 pm
ML under the MAR assumption says that you should use all available data. Don't exclude anyone unless he/she has missing data on all three time points.
 Aimee Maxwell posted on Monday, February 16, 2015 - 4:48 pm
Hi,

Thanks so much for informative answers!

I used the MLR estimator to perform my cross-sectional model and am now testing a portion of it longitudinally (3 time points).

Does MLR use FIML like ML does?

Do I just code the missingness -9999 and tell Mplus that's the missing values number then use the MLR estimator as usual?
As in:

Missing are all (-9999) ;

Thanks!
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Monday, February 16, 2015 - 5:40 pm
Q1. Yes.

Q2. Yes.
 Aimee Maxwell posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - 3:28 pm
Thanks!
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