modificationIndices: Modification Indices

In lavaan: Latent Variable Analysis

Modification Indices

Description

Given a fitted lavaan object, compute the modification indices (= univariate score tests) for a selected set of fixed-to-zero parameters.

Usage

modificationIndices(object, standardized = TRUE, cov_std = TRUE,
                    information = "expected",
                    power = FALSE, delta = 0.1, alpha = 0.05,
                    high_power = 0.75, sort = FALSE, minimum_value = 0,
                    maximum_number = nrow(list_1), free_remove = TRUE,
                    na_remove = TRUE, op = NULL, ...)
modindices(object, standardized = TRUE, cov_std = TRUE, information = "expected",
                    power = FALSE, delta = 0.1, alpha = 0.05, high_power = 0.75,
                    sort = FALSE, minimum_value = 0,
                    maximum_number = nrow(list_1), free_remove = TRUE,
                    na_remove = TRUE, op = NULL, ...)

Arguments

object	An object of class lavaan.
standardized	If TRUE, two extra columns (sepc.lv and sepc.all) will contain standardized values for the EPCs. In the first column (sepc.lv), standardization is based on the variances of the (continuous) latent variables. In the second column (sepc.all), standardization is based on the variances of both the (continuous) observed and latent variables. (Residual) covariances are standardized using (residual) variances.
cov_std	Logical. See standardizedSolution.
information	character indicating the type of information matrix to use (check lavInspect for available options). "expected" information is the default, which provides better control of Type I errors.
power	If TRUE, the (post-hoc) power is computed for each modification index, using the values of delta and alpha.
delta	The value of the effect size, as used in the post-hoc power computation, currently using the unstandardized metric of the epc column.
alpha	The significance level used for deciding if the modification index is statistically significant or not.
high_power	If the computed power is higher than this cutoff value, the power is considered ‘high’. If not, the power is considered ‘low’. This affects the values in the 'decision' column in the output.
sort	Logical. If TRUE, sort the output by the modification index values. Higher values appear first.
minimum_value	Numeric. Filter output and only show rows with a modification index value equal to or higher than this minimum value.
maximum_number	Integer. Filter output and only show the first maximum_number rows. Most useful when combined with the sort option.
free_remove	Logical. If TRUE, filter output by removing all rows corresponding to free (unconstrained) parameters in the original model.
na_remove	Logical. If TRUE, filter output by removing all rows with NA values for the modification indices.
op	Character string. Filter the output by selecting only those rows with operator op.
...	To support old argument names.

Details

Modification indices are just 1-df (or univariate) score tests. The modification index (or score test) for a single parameter reflects (approximately) the improvement in model fit (in terms of the chi-square test statistic) if we were to refit the model with this parameter set free. This function is a convenience function in the sense that it produces a (hopefully sensible) table of currently fixed-to-zero (or fixed to another constant) parameters. For each of these parameters, a modification index is computed, together with an expected parameter change (epc) value. It is important to realize that this function will only consider fixed-to-zero parameters. If you have equality constraints in the model, and you wish to examine what happens if you release all (or some) of these equality constraints, use the lavTestScore function.

Value

A data.frame containing modification indices and EPCs.

Examples

HS.model <- ' visual  =~ x1 + x2 + x3
              textual =~ x4 + x5 + x6
              speed   =~ x7 + x8 + x9 '

fit <- cfa(HS.model, data=HolzingerSwineford1939)
modindices(fit, minimum_value = 10, sort = TRUE)

lavaan documentation built on Oct. 8, 2026, 5:06 p.m.