Author: Rens van de Schoot

The GRoLTS-Checklist: Guidelines for Reporting on Latent Trajectory Studies

Estimating models within the mixture model framework, like latent growth mixture modeling (LGMM) or latent class growth analysis (LCGA), involves making various decisions throughout the estimation process. This has led to a wide variety in how results of latent trajectory analysis are reported.

Small Samples

Researchers often have difficulties collecting enough data to obtain statistical power: when target groups are small (e.g., children with severe burn injuries), hard to access (e.g., infants of drug-dependent mothers), or measuring the participants requires prohibitive costs (e.g., measuring phonological difficulties of babies). Such obstacles to collecting data usually leads to a limited data set. Researchers can overcome this through simplifying their hypotheses and statistical models. However, this strategy is undesirable since the intended research question cannot be answered in this way.