Skip to main content

Mixture Modeling with MplusAutomation

2 Introduction to MplusAutomation

MplusAutomation7 is designed to streamline the use of Mplus, a powerful statistical software for modeling complex data developed by Muthen and Muten (https://www.statmodel.com). With MplusAutomation, researchers can automate the process of estimating latent variable models, running batches of models, extracting results, and generating data visualizations - all within the R environment.

WHAT?

  • MplusAutomation is an R package
  • It “wraps around” the Mplus program
  • Requires both R & Mplus software
  • Requires learning some basics of 2 programming languages
  • Car metaphor: R/Rstudio is the steering wheel or dashboard & Mplus is the engine

WHY?

  • MplusAutomation can provide clearly organized work procedures in which every research decision can be documented in a single place
  • Increase reproducibility, organization, efficiency, and transparency

HOW?

  • The interface for MplusAutomation is entirely within R-Studio. You do not need to open Mplus
  • The code presented will be very repetitive by design

Below is a template for mplusObject() & mplusModeler() functions. Use this template to run statistical models with Mplus.

m_template  <- mplusObject(
  
  TITLE = 
    "", 
  
  VARIABLE = 
    "",
  
  ANALYSIS = 
    "",
  
  PLOT = 
    "",
  
  OUTPUT = 
    "",
 
  usevariables = colnames(), 
  rdata =  )

m_template_fit <- mplusModeler(m_template, 
                  dataout=here("", ".dat"),
                  modelout=here("", ".inp"),
                  check=TRUE, run = TRUE, hashfilename = FALSE)