Rockwood NJ. Maximum likelihood estimation of multilevel structural equation models with random slopes for latent covariates. Psychometrika. 2020 Jun;85(2):275-300. doi: 10.1007/s11336-020-09702-9


A maximum likelihood estimation routine for two-level structural equation models with random slopes for latent covariates is presented. Because the likelihood function does not typically have a closed-form solution, numerical integration over the random effects is required. The routine relies upon a method proposed by du Toit and Cudeck (Psychometrika 74(1):65–82, 2009) for reformulating the likelihood function so that an often large subset of the random effects can be integrated analytically, reducing the computational burden of high-dimensional numerical integration. The method is demonstrated and assessed using a small-scale simulation study and an empirical example.

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