Observed Items with Mixed Measurement... PreviousNext
Mplus Discussion > Latent Variable Mixture Modeling >
Message/Author
 Jun Xu posted on Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 7:49 am
Dr. Muthen,

I am working a data-reduction project. I have about 30 countries, each with a series of binary indicators and some ratio variables bounded between 0 and 1 (e.g., educational expenses as percent of GDP). I intend to find latent classes based on these indicators. Based on the readings that I had, LCA only applies to categorical or ordinal indicators, not a mixture of these indicators. Does MPlus tackle this problem and/or can you point me to some relevant references. Thanks.

Jun Xu, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
 Linda K. Muthen posted on Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 7:57 am
In Mplus, the latent class indicators can be
continuous, censored, binary, ordered categorical (ordinal), unordered categorical (nominal), counts, or combinations of these variable types.
 Jun Xu posted on Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 8:59 am
Dr. Muthen,

Thanks for your answer. Another concern that I have before plunging into MPlus is sample size. Is 30 observations with about 6-8 variables a large enough sample size for the EM algorithm. Or you would suggest I go on another route?

Jun
 Linda K. Muthen posted on Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 10:25 am
That seems like a very small sample to use to look for latent classes.
Back to top
Add Your Message Here
Post:
Username: Posting Information:
This is a private posting area. Only registered users and moderators may post messages here.
Password:
Options: Enable HTML code in message
Automatically activate URLs in message
Action: