bifactory: (Bifactor) ESEM with Continuous (MLR) or Ordered (WLSMV) Data

Fits bifactor exploratory structural equation models (B-ESEM), together with standard exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), for continuous and ordered-categorical data. Continuous models use 'lavaan' native efa() blocks with robust maximum likelihood (MLR) estimation. Ordered-categorical ESEM defaults to the 'lavaan' weighted least squares mean- and variance-adjusted (WLSMV) estimator; ordered B-ESEM uses a custom diagonally weighted least squares (DWLS) path with polychoric correlations from 'psych', rotation-delta standard errors via 'numDeriv', and a mean- and variance-adjusted chi-square. Target, geomin, and oblimin rotations use 'GPArotation'; the bifactor ESEM approach follows Morin, Arens and Marsh (2016) <doi:10.1080/10705511.2014.961800>. Additional features include multi-group measurement invariance (configural through strict, with partial invariance), ESEM-within-CFA conversion, McDonald's omega reliability suite, and the Mehrvarz and Rouder (2026) <doi:10.31234/osf.io/95enc_v3> alignment ratio check for independent cluster model confirmatory factor analysis (ICM-CFA) misspecification. An optional 'MplusAutomation' interface allows side-by-side comparison with 'Mplus' output.

Version: 0.5.1
Depends: R (≥ 4.1.0)
Imports: lavaan (≥ 0.6-21), GPArotation, psych, MASS, numDeriv, stats, utils, graphics, methods, withr
Suggests: MplusAutomation, openxlsx2, testthat (≥ 3.0.0)
Published: 2026-07-11
DOI: 10.32614/CRAN.package.bifactory (may not be active yet)
Author: Leon T. De Beer [aut, cre]
Maintainer: Leon T. De Beer <leondb at gmail.com>
BugReports: https://github.com/leondebeer/bifactory/issues
License: AGPL-3
URL: https://github.com/leondebeer/bifactory
NeedsCompilation: no
Materials: NEWS
CRAN checks: bifactory results

Documentation:

Reference manual: bifactory.html , bifactory.pdf

Downloads:

Package source: bifactory_0.5.1.tar.gz
Windows binaries: r-devel: not available, r-release: not available, r-oldrel: not available
macOS binaries: r-release (arm64): not available, r-oldrel (arm64): not available, r-release (x86_64): not available, r-oldrel (x86_64): not available

Linking:

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