(Version 0.1.11 updated on 2024-04-22, release history)
This package is an assortment of time-saving helper functions for doing structural
equation modeling
(SEM), mainly by lavaan::lavaan() and its wrappers, such as
lavaan::sem() and lavaan::cfa(). This package is not for implementing
advanced statistical procedures. This should be the job of excellent
packages such as semTools. These helper functions are for tasks that come
in handy (at least to me) when doing SEM. They are
usually used during the data analysis phase, not for publishing
or presenting results.
Many of the tasks can be done by base R code or by dplyr functions.
However, these functions may help users who are not familiar with
R programming or use R only occasionally to do these tasks
without writing their own code, or for people like me who know
how to do this using base R but do not want to write the code every
time.
I intentionally use base R if possible because I want to keep
semhelpinghands a light weight package, depending on as few
other packages as possible, so that I do not need to worry about
deprecated functions or updates in other packages that break things,
defeating the "time saving" purpose of this package.
More about this package can be found from the GitHub page of this package:
https://sfcheung.github.io/semhelpinghands/
The latest version at CRAN can be installed by install.packages():
install.packages("semhelpinghands")
The latest developmental version at GitHub can be installed by remotes::install_github():
remotes::install_github("sfcheung/semhelpinghands")
One major motive behind all these functions
is writing something for my own work
with others. So,
each function should be at least useful
to me myself and I myself will use them.
Nevertheless, maybe there are others
who, like me, just want some simple
functions for some simple tasks. I
also like using packages to pack functions
I used myself in my work, so I do not have to
source files again and again. Therefore,
I packaged them into semhelpinghands
also for myself.
I hope this package will also be useful
for some others.
I will only devote a limited amount of time on this package. The package and its functions are means for me to do research. They are not the goals themselves.
I would like to thank Prof. Rosseel and
Prof. Jorgensen for developing lavaan
and semTools. Their advice in the
lavaan Google Group
and GitHub pages (for lavaan
and semTools)
on various issues about lavaan
helped me in writing some
of the functions here, before they
were packed into semhelpinghands.
If there are people who inspired some
of the functions but I forgot to acknowledge,
please let me know.
This package is still under development. There will be bugs, and there are limitations. Comments and suggestions are welcomed. Feel free to add an issue at GitHub. Although I may not be able to address all of them because this package is intended to be a collection of simple functions for simple tasks, and they are designed to be easy to maintain, I will try to do what I can do.