HTMT

Source: R/helper_assess.R

Computes either the heterotrait-monotrait ratio of correlations (HTMT) based on Henseler et al. (2015) or the HTMT2 proposed by Roemer et al. (2021) . While the HTMT is a consistent estimator for the construct correlation in case of tau-equivalent measurement models, the HTMT2 is a consistent estimator for congeneric measurement models. In general, they are used to assess discriminant validity.

calculateHTMT(
 .object               = NULL,
 .type_htmt            = c('htmt','htmt2'),
 .absolute             = TRUE,
 .alpha                = 0.05,
 .ci                   = c("CI_percentile", "CI_standard_z", "CI_standard_t", 
                           "CI_basic", "CI_bc", "CI_bca", "CI_t_interval"),
 .inference            = FALSE,
 .only_common_factors  = TRUE,
 .R                    = 499,
 .seed                 = NULL,
 ...
)

Arguments

.object

An R object of class cSEMResults resulting from a call to csem().

.type_htmt

Character string indicating the type of HTMT that should be calculated, i.e., the original HTMT ("htmt") or the HTMT2 ("htmt2"). Defaults to "htmt"

.absolute

Logical. Should the absolute HTMT values be returned? Defaults to TRUE .

.alpha

A numeric value giving the significance level. Defaults to 0.05.

.ci

A character strings naming the type of confidence interval to use to compute the 1-alpha% quantile of the bootstrap HTMT values. For possible choices see infer(). Ignored if .inference = FALSE. Defaults to "CI_percentile".

.inference

Logical. Should critical values be computed? Defaults to FALSE.

.only_common_factors

Logical. Should only concepts modeled as common factors be included when calculating one of the following quality criteria: AVE, the Fornell-Larcker criterion, HTMT, and all reliability estimates. Defaults to TRUE.

.R

Integer. The number of bootstrap replications. Defaults to 499.

.seed

Integer or NULL. The random seed to use. Defaults to NULL in which case an arbitrary seed is chosen. Note that the scope of the seed is limited to the body of the function it is used in. Hence, the global seed will not be altered!

...

Ignored.

Value

A named list containing:

  • the values of the HTMT/HTMT2, i.e., a matrix with the HTMT/HTMT2 values at its lower triangular and if .inference = TRUE the upper triangular contains the upper limit of the 1-2*.alpha% bootstrap confidence interval if the HTMT/HTMT2 is positive and the lower limit if the HTMT/HTMT2 is negative.

  • the lower and upper limits of the 1-2*.alpha% bootstrap confidence interval if .inference = TRUE; otherwise it is NULL.

  • the number of admissible bootstrap runs, i.e., the number of HTMT/HTMT2 values calculated during bootstrap if .inference = TRUE; otherwise it is NULL. Note, the HTMT2 is based on the geometric and thus cannot always be calculated.

Details

Computation of the HTMT/HTMT2 assumes that all intra-block and inter-block correlations between indicators are either all-positive or all-negative. A warning is given if this is not the case.

To obtain bootstrap confidence intervals for the HTMT/HTMT2 values, set .inference = TRUE. To choose the type of confidence interval, use .ci. To control the bootstrap process, arguments .R and .seed are available. Note, that .alpha is multiplied by two because typically researchers are interested in one-sided bootstrap confidence intervals for the HTMT/HTMT2.

Since the HTMT and the HTMT2 both assume a reflective measurement model only concepts modeled as common factors are considered by default. For concepts modeled as composites the HTMT may be computed by setting .only_common_factors = FALSE, however, it is unclear how to interpret values in this case.

References

Henseler J, Ringle CM, Sarstedt M (2015). “A New Criterion for Assessing Discriminant Validity in Variance-based Structural Equation Modeling.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(1), 115–135. doi:10.1007/s11747-014-0403-8 .

Roemer E, Schuberth F, Henseler J (2021). “HTMT2 – an improved criterion for assessing discriminant validity in structural equation modeling.” Industrial Management & Data Systems, 121(12), 2637–2650.