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Overall aim: to simulate data that mimics large-scale assessments (LSAs), including background questionnaire data and cognitive item responses that adhere to a multiple-matrix sampled design. With specified correlations between background data and latent cognitive traits, the package also has functionality for theoretical and Monte Carlo regression coefficients for the effect of background data on the latent trait. This package was created as part of theEmbracing Heterogeneity Project.

• Tyler Matta
• Yuan-Ling Linda Liaw
• Leslie Rutkowski
• David Rutkowski
• Kondwani Kajera Mughogho
• Waldir Leoncio

In the spirit of theopen science movement,lsasim (pronounced "LSA-sim") is a free and open source software, licensed under theGNU General Public License v3.0. Contributions to the package are welcome, and we recommend youcontact us if you're interested in doing so.

The latest official, stable version of lsasim is available onCRAN and can be installed like any other R package, i.e. by issuing the following command in your R prompt:

install.packages("lsasim")

lsasim's GitHub repository is the central location for development of the package. Stable and test versions of lsasim can be built from this repository, but they are to be considered unstable and are not guaranteed to work properly. The development team has several coding standards and testing procedures in place to avoid issues at any branch, but unless you know what you are doing, we recommend you stick with the CRAN version of our package.

To install lsasim from GitHub, first make sure you have an up-to-date version of theremotes package installed in your machine. Then, run the following command in you R terminal:

remotes::install_github("tmatta/lsasim", ref = "master")  # "ref" can be any branch, tag or commit

Package releases can also be downloaded as compressed files fromhttps://github.com/tmatta/lsasim/releases. These files can be installed in R using theinstall.packages() command with the downloaded file path as argument.

There are several sources of information that help a user get started withlsasim and discover its most important features. The package's official repository hosts aWiki; Oncelsasim is installed in your machine, you can also issue the commandhelp("lsasim")—or?lsasim for short—to learn more about the package in general. You can also use thehelp() or? functions to access the documentation for a specific function, for example?questionnaire_gen. Some functions such asbeta_gen contain equations, which will be displayed when callinghelp("beta_gen"); however, proper formatting of the equations can be seen by runninghelp("beta_gen", help_type = "PDF") and opening the beta_gen.pdf file that is created in your working directory.

This package contains vignettes. If you are installinglsasim from GitHub, remember to includebuild_vignettes=TRUE in yourremotes::install_github() call. Afterwards, you can browse the vignettes by issuingbrowseVignettes("lsasim") in your R terminal.

Bugs should be reported by creating a new issue onhttps://github.com/tmatta/lsasim/issues. For feature requests, please usethis form. If you would rather contribute with source code yourself, please fork the project and issue apull request when you are ready to have us review your contribution.