Mplus, correlation or covariance PreviousNext
Mplus Discussion > Categorical Data Modeling >
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 Yung Chung posted on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 - 6:28 pm
Hi, good evening:

I estimated a model where one of the outcome variables is a binary variable
(four-year college enrollment or not: enroll4) and everything else was treated
as continuous. Using the command "categorical are enroll4", the weighted
least square with mean and variance adjustment was therefore invoked.

Am I correct in my assumption that Mplus analysed tetrachoric (?) correlation
matrix opposed to covariance matrix?

Any insight will be greatly appreciated,

Cheers,

Will
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 - 6:50 pm
When you have a combination of continuous and categorical variables, the matrix that is analyzed has different entries depending on the scale of the variables. For two continuous variables, the off-diagonal entry is a covariance and the diagonal entries are variances. For two binary variables, the off-diagonal entry is a tetrachoric correlation and there is no diagonal entry. For a continuous and a categorical variable, the off-diagonal entry is a biserial correlation and there is no diagonal entry.
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