index.Rmd

---
title: "A `lavaan` Compendium for Structural Equation Modeling in Educational Research"
author: "Suzanne Jak and Terrence D. Jorgensen"
date: "Last updated `r format(Sys.time(), '%d %B %Y')`"
site: bookdown::bookdown_site
output: 
  bookdown::gitbook:
    css: styles.css
    config:
      toc:
        collapse: section
documentclass: book
bibliography: [SEM-Compendium.bib, packages.bib]
biblio-style: apalike
link-citations: yes
github-repo: TDJorgensen/SEM-in-Ed-compendium
delete_merged_file: yes
new_session: yes
---

# Preface {-}

```{r load packages for book, include=FALSE}
library(lavaan)
library(semTools)
library(emmeans)

# automatically create a bib database for R packages
knitr::write_bib(c(
  .packages(), 'bookdown', 'knitr', 'rmarkdown', 'tinytex'
), 'packages.bib')
```

```{r cover photo, echo=FALSE, out.width = "50%", fig.align = "left" }
knitr::include_graphics("images/Ch9_Empirical_cycle.png")
```


This compendium began as a collection of documents used a teaching materials, to supplement software-agnostic textbooks about structural equation modeling (SEM).  Materials were originally developed for a University of Amsterdam course (search [here](https://studiegids.uva.nl/) for a description of the course "structural equation modelling in educational research") taught by [Frans Oort](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1823-7105) and [Suzanne Jak](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2223-5594) using the [`OpenMx`](http://openmx.ssri.psu.edu/) package, and later adapted for the [`lavaan`](https://lavaan.ugent.be/) by Suzanne Jak, [Mathilde Verdam](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2479-8817), and [Terrence D. Jorgensen](https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5111-6773). The latest version of the materials were compiled into the current compendium by Suzanne Jak and Terrence D. Jorgensen using [RMarkdown](https://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/), and assisted by [Lennert J. Groot](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8711-6086) to compile the separate chapters into a [`bookdown`](https://bookdown.org/) project hosted on [GitHub](https://github.com/TDJorgensen/SEM-in-Ed-compendium).


## Copyright {-}

Unless otherwise noted, this book is released under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) also known as a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. This means you are free to 

- **Share** (copy and redistribute) the material in any medium or format
- **Adapt** (remix, transform, and build upon) the material

as long as any derivative materials are also distributed using a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. Under this license, anyone who redistributes this textbook can do so for free **on the condition** they properly attribute the book as follows:

- Jak, S., \& Jorgensen, T. D. (2023). *A `lavaan` Compendium for Structural Equation Modeling in Educational Research*. <https://tdjorgensen.github.io/SEM-in-Ed-compendium/>


## Acknowledgments {-}

We thank [Lennert J. Groot](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8711-6086) for compiling the chapters into the initial bookdown project, now maintained by [Terrence D. Jorgensen](https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5111-6773).  This was facilitated by a Grassroots grant (project *Unstatic: Towards an adaptive online learning environment for statistics education*), funded by the University of Amsterdam in academic year 2021--2022.