Package: achieveGap
Type: Package
Title: Modeling Achievement Gap Trajectories with Hierarchical
        Penalized Splines
Version: 0.1.0
Authors@R: 
    person("Subir", "Hait",
           email = "haitsubi@msu.edu",
           role = c("aut", "cre"),
           comment = c(ORCID = "0009-0004-9871-9677"))
Description: 
    Implements a hierarchical penalized spline framework for estimating
    achievement gap trajectories in longitudinal educational data.
    The achievement gap between two groups (e.g., low versus high
    socioeconomic status) is modeled directly as a smooth function
    of grade while the baseline trajectory is estimated simultaneously
    within a mixed-effects model. Smoothing parameters are selected
    using restricted maximum likelihood (REML), and simultaneous
    confidence bands with correct joint coverage are constructed
    using posterior simulation. The package also includes functions
    for simulation-based benchmarking, visualization of gap
    trajectories, and hypothesis testing for global and
    grade-specific differences. The modeling framework builds on
    penalized spline methods (Eilers and Marx, 1996,
    <doi:10.1214/ss/1038425655>) and generalized additive modeling
    approaches (Wood, 2017, <doi:10.1201/9781315370279>), with
    uncertainty quantification following Marra and Wood (2012,
    <doi:10.1111/j.1467-9469.2011.00760.x>).
License: GPL (>= 3)
Encoding: UTF-8
RoxygenNote: 7.3.3
Depends: R (>= 4.1.0)
Imports: mgcv (>= 1.9-0), lme4 (>= 1.1-0), MASS (>= 7.3-0), ggplot2 (>=
        3.4.0)
Suggests: knitr (>= 1.36), rmarkdown (>= 2.11), testthat (>= 3.0.0)
VignetteBuilder: knitr
Config/testthat/edition: 3
URL: https://github.com/causalfragility-lab/achieveGap
BugReports: https://github.com/causalfragility-lab/achieveGap/issues
NeedsCompilation: no
Packaged: 2026-03-14 05:05:13 UTC; Subir
Author: Subir Hait [aut, cre] (ORCID: <https://orcid.org/0009-0004-9871-9677>)
Maintainer: Subir Hait <haitsubi@msu.edu>
Repository: CRAN
Date/Publication: 2026-03-19 14:10:02 UTC
