Tips for Using the Software to conduct MUPPET Modeling

2025-08-28

Tips for MUPPET Modeling and Software

Variable names

Owing to Mplus’s naming conventions for parameters, variable names should be 8 characters or fewer. For variables that are discrete (categorical), the length of the names should be 6 characters or fewer. (This holds as long as there are fewer than 10 thresholds for the categorical variables. If you’re using a variable with 10 or more thresholds, you will likely need an even shorter variable name.)

Number of iterations

Theoretically, any number of chains and iterations could used. However, early testing indicated that problems can occur if using a single chain, or when using fewer than 100 iterations for inference. More concretely, this means that n.chains should be at least 2, and n.iters.per.chain.after.warmup.and.burnin should be at least 100.

Crashing or exhausting of memory

If experience crashes or other issues related to exhausting computer memory, it can help to increase the value of n.estimation.batches.