Rank-deficiencies in a reduced information latent variable model

Abstract

Latent variable models are well-known to suffer from rank deficiencies, causing problems with convergence and stability. Such problems are compounded in the ‘reduced-group split-ballot multitrait-multimethod model’, which omits a set of moments from the estimation through a planned missing data design. This chapter demonstrates the existence of rank deficiencies in this model and give the explicit null space. It also demonstrates that sample size and distance from the rank-deficient point interact in their effects on convergence, causing convergence to improve or worsen depending on both factors simultaneously. Furthermore, it notes that the latent variable correlations in the uncorrelated methods SB-MTMM model remain unaffected by the rank deficiency. I conclude that methodological experiments should be careful to manipulate both distance to known rank deficiencies and sample size, and report all results, not only the apparently converged ones. Practitioners may consider that, even in the presence of nonconvergence or so-called ‘inadmissible’ estimates, a subset of parameter estimates may still be consistent and stable.