SubCultCon (version 1.0)

ccmle: Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Cultural Competence Scores

Description

Given a matrix of answers, the function returns the maximum-likelihood estimates of the informants' competence scores, and an answer key estimated using the matrix of answers, weighted by the competence scores.

Usage

ccmle(answermat)

Arguments

answermat

A matrix of informant answers to a fixed set of questions. The matrix should have n rows and m columns, where n is the number of informants and m is the number of questions. The element in row i and column j should be the answer provided to question j, by informant i. All questions should have the same number of possible responses.

Value

comp

Maximum-likelihood estimates of the competence scores

key

Estimate of the answer key

conv

Indication of convergence -- a value of 0 means convergence; anything else means failure

val

The value of the negative log likelihood function at the solution

Details

Each question in answermat should have the same number of possible responses.

References

Kimball A. Romney, Susan C. Weller, and William H. Batchelder (1986). Culture as Consensus: A Theory of Culture and Informant Accuract. American Anthropologist 88(2)

See Also

ccgrouptest, GAmaxcomp

Examples

data(contagion)
## Compute the competence scores and the answer key for the contagion data
mlescores=ccmle(contagion$answermat)
## make a histogram of the competence scores
hist(mlescores$comp,main="Competency Scores for the Informants",br=28:50/50)
## look at the answer key
mlescores$key