Mplus Users Guide v6.. - Muthén & Muthén

OUTPUT, SAVEDATA, And PLOT CommandsThe second column of the output labeled E.P.C. contains the expectedparameter change index for each parameter that is fixed or constrained tobe equal to another parameter. An E.P.C. index provides the expectedvalue of the parameter in question if it is freely estimated. The third andfourth columns of the output labeled Std E.P.C. and StdYX E.P.C.contain the two standardized expected parameter change indices. Theseindices are useful because the standardized values provide relativecomparisons. The Std E.P.C. indices are standardized using thevariances of the continuous latent variables. The StdYX E.P.C. indicesare standardized using the variances of the continuous latent variables aswell as the variances of the background and/or outcome variables.CINTERVALThe CINTERVAL option is used to request confidence intervals forfrequentist model parameter estimates and credibility intervals forBayesian model parameter estimates. Confidence intervals are alsoavailable for indirect effects and standardized indirect effects. TheCINTERVAL option has three settings for frequentist estimation andtwo settings for Bayesian estimation.The frequentist settings are SYMMETRIC, BOOTSTRAP, andBCBOOTSTRAP. SYMMETRIC is the default for frequentistestimation. SYMMETRIC produces 90%, 95% and 99% symmetricconfidence intervals. BOOTSTRAP produces 90%, 95%, and 99%bootstrap confidence intervals. BCBOOTSTRAP produces 90%, 95%,and 99% bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals. Thebootstrapped distribution of each parameter estimate is used todetermine the bootstrap and bias-corrected bootstrap confidenceintervals. These intervals take non-normality of the parameter estimatedistribution into account. As a result, they are not necessarily symmetricaround the parameter estimate.The Bayesian settings are EQTAIL and HPD. EQTAIL is the default forBayesian estimation. EQTAIL produces 90%, 95%, and 99% credibilityintervals of the posterior distribution with equal tail percentages. HPDproduces 90%, 95%, and 99% credibility intervals of the posteriordistribution that give the highest posterior density (Gelman et al., 2004).With frequentist estimation, only SYMMETRIC confidence intervals areavailable for standardized parameter estimates. With Bayesian647