Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Examining Latent Change Classes: An Application Of Factor Mixture Modeling To Change Scores, Thai Q. Ong

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Although change scores are used in a variety of statistical methods (e.g., analysis of variance and regression), there is a lack of application of latent variable modeling methods to change scores. This thesis provides a detailed description of two latent variable modeling methods applied to change scores: factor analysis of change scores and change score factor mixture modeling. To illustrate advantages of these methods, both were applied to change score data from undergraduates. Students responded to sense of identity items during a university-wide assessment day on two occasions, once as incoming freshmen and again as second-semester sophomores. Change scores were …