Latent Variable Forests for Latent Variable Score Estimation.

We develop a (LV Forest) algorithm for the estimation of latent variable scores with one or more latent variables. LV Forest estimates unbiased latent variable scores based on (CFA) models with ordinal and/or numerical response variables. Through parametric model restrictions paired with a nonparametric tree-based machine learning approach, LV Forest estimates latent variable scores using models that are unbiased with respect to relevant subgroups in the population.