(Version 0.1.12 updated on 2024-11-02, 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.