Preconference Workshop: Psychometric network modeling with the psychonetrics R package

Monday, June 24, 2024 from 9:00-5:00

Sacha Epskamp

National University of Singapore

The freely available psychonetrics package for R provides an encompassing framework for psychometric network modeling, combining typical practices in Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with undirected network modeling now commonly used in network psychometrics. The psychonetrics package can be used for various types of data (cross-sectional, time-series and panel data), and not only allows researchers to explore relations between observed and latent variables through the use of network models, but also allows researchers to perform confirmatory tests on given network structures and to test for homogeneity in (latent) network structures across groups. This workshop will introduce participants to the psychonetrics package and will teach participants to:

– interpret undirected multivariate network models
– understand differences between within- and between-person effects and cross-sectional and longitudinal data
– install, load and use the psychonetrics package
– use psychonetrics for exploratory network estimation (from cross-sectional, N=1 time-series and panel data)
– use psychonetrics for confirmatory network testing
– use psychonetrics to combine latent variable models with network models
– use psychonetrics for multi-group invariance and homogeneity testing

Familiarity with R and having R and the psychonetrics package installed are recommended for attending the workshop.

Registration for the preconference workshop is now open.

Bio: Sacha Epskamp is an associate professor at the National University of Singapore, Department of Psychology. Previously, he worked at the University of Amsterdam in the Department of Psychology and the Centre for Urban Mental Health. In addition, Sacha Epskamp is a former research fellow at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Studies and has been a visiting researcher at the Complexity Institute of Nanyang Technological University. In 2016, Sacha Epskamp completed his seminal PhD on network psychometrics—estimating network models from psychological datasets and equating these to established psychometric modeling techniques. This dissertation laid the groundworks for the field of Network Psychometrics. He has implemented these methods in several software packages now routinely used in diverse fields of psychological research. Sacha Epskamp teaches multivariate statistics and data science, and his research interests involve (network) psychometrics, meta-science, reproducibility, complexity, time-series modeling, and dynamical systems modeling. Sacha Epskamp has received several awards for his research, including the Leamer-Rosenthal Prize of the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences, the dissertation prize of the psychometric society, and the junior scientific award of the Complex Systems Society.