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 Hongbo Wang posted on Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - 12:51 pm
Hi,
I'm creating a scale of self-control based on a big set of selected survey items. They scatter across different questionnaires and, as a result, are measured quite differently. I have responses coded using a 5-point scale, say, "Never" "Once a month" "Once a week" "Once a day and more" while others scaled from "Very important" to "Important" "Indifferent" to "unimportant" to "Not important at all". There are continuous/count responses as well.
So what would you suggest me to do with these indicators for a 1 or 2-factor CFA? I'm assuming Mplus allows for indicators measured differently. I'm currently thinking of dichotomizing them first but worry that it can lead to artificial results...


Thanks,
Hongbo
 Linda K. Muthen posted on Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - 1:03 pm
In Mplus factor indicators can be continuous, censored, binary, ordered categorical (ordinal), counts, or combinations of these variable types.
 Hongbo Wang posted on Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - 3:59 pm
Hi Linda:
Thank you! But on what conditions would you suggest dichotomization of all indicators? I roughly recall that it could be a problem when indicators have too many categories (>4?)...


Best,
Hongbo
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Thursday, April 03, 2008 - 12:43 pm
No need to dichotomize 5-category variables; they can be treated as categorical (i.e. ordinal).
 Hongbo Wang posted on Thursday, April 03, 2008 - 12:58 pm
Dear Dr. Muthen:
Thanks.


Best,
Hongbo
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