Psychoco 2022: Edgar C. Merkle - blavaan: Bayesian Latent Variable Models with Stan and JAGS

Invited presentation from Psychoco 2022 online (https://www.psychoco.org/2022/) Title: blavaan: Bayesian Latent Variable Models with Stan and JAGS Author: Edgar C. Merkle Affiliation: University of Missouri Abstract: The talk will detail development and features of R package blavaan, which allows for Bayesian estimation of latent variable models. The package works by using lavaan functionality for model specification and summary, while using JAGS and Stan for model estimation via Markov chain Monte Carlo. In the talk, I will first discuss initial package developments that started with JAGS and progressed toward Stan. I will then describe current and future developments, especially focusing on models that involve combinations of continuous and ordinal observed variables. Finally, I will provide examples illustrating package functionality and mention research related to the package.