I am sorry if this question is confusing, but I am stats newbie!! I am trying to simulate a composite variable which takes values ranging from 0 to 40. The composite variable is made of the sum of 8 questions which could take values between 0 and 5. I am aware that I cannot use rnorm, since it will also give me negative values, and the original data is right skewed. I have the probabilities for each score (o to 5) occurring for each of the compositor variables, so I have considered generating each of them separately using the sample function, and then summing them to create my sum variable. However, I am afraid that they probably would be correlated, and I haven't been able to find a way to simulate them simultaneously while also accounting for correlation. Essentially, to make it easier to imagine, the paper contrasts the use of 2 languages in different scenarios, so those same questions are asked twice to each participant for each language. Therefore, the variables might also be correlated between conditions. Is there a way to deal with that, or would it be best to simulate the total score variable directly? From what I understand, although I am not sure if I am correct, I could use the rpois function to do this? Or another solution I could thin of is simulate the data using rnorm, and then square it to make a right skew? Any opinion would be very useful!!! Thank you in advance!!
I have tried using rpois and simulating each compositor variable separately.