semTools Measurement Invariance

The R script contains a reproducible example of the new approach to get the deprecated semTools measurement invariance output using the Holzinger and Swineford (1939) dataset.

semTools used to have a simple function for Measurement Invariance:

semTools::measurementInvariance(
  model = your_model, 
  data = your_data, 
  group = "your_group"
)

But the old approach was deprecated to add flexibility. Now you have to do the following to produce the same result:

test.seq <- c("loadings","intercepts","means","residuals")

meq.list <- list()

for (i in 0:length(test.seq)) {
  if (i == 0L) {
    meq.label <- "configural"
    group.equal <- ""
  } else {
    meq.label <- test.seq[i]
    group.equal <- test.seq[1:i]
  }
  
  meq.list[[meq.label]] <- 
    semTools::measEq.syntax(
      configural.model = your_model,
      data = your_data,
      ID.fac = "auto.fix.first",
      group = "your_group",
      group.equal = group.equal,
      return.fit = TRUE
  )
}

semTools::compareFit(meq.list)

The new approach probably looks more complicated to the most of us. But if you simply copy and paste the code above and change your_model, your_data, and your_group you are good to go.

This was first published by Michael Clark.