Whether or not you run experiments, there are elements of experimental design that affect how you need to analyze many types of studies.
The most fundamental of these are replication, randomization, and blocking. These key design elements come up in studies under all sorts of names: trials, replicates, multi-level nesting, repeated measures. Any data set that requires mixed or multilevel models has some of these design elements. (more…)
What are the best methods for checking a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) for proper fit?
This question comes up frequently.
Unfortunately, it isn’t as straightforward as it is for a general linear model.
In linear models the requirements are easy to outline: linear in the parameters, normally distributed and independent residuals, and homogeneity of variance (that is, similar variance at all values of all predictors).
Multicollinearity can affect any regression model with more than one predictor. It occurs when two or more predictor variables overlap so much in what they measure that their effects are indistinguishable.
When the model tries to estimate their unique effects, it goes wonky (yes, that’s a technical term).
So for example, you may be interested in understanding the separate effects of altitude and temperature on the growth of a certain species of mountain tree.
Mixed models are hard.
They’re abstract, they’re a little weird, and there is not a common vocabulary or notation for them.
But they’re also extremely important to understand because many data sets require their use.
Repeated measures ANOVA has too many limitations. It just doesn’t cut it any more.
One of the most difficult parts of fitting mixed models is figuring out which random effects to include in a model. And that’s hard to do if you don’t really understand what a random effect is or how it differs from a fixed effect. (more…)
Most analysts would respond, “a mixed model,” but have you ever heard of latent growth curves? How about latent trajectories, latent curves, growth curves, or time paths, which are other names for the same approach?
In fixed-effects models (e.g., regression, ANOVA, generalized linear models), there is only one source of random variability. This source of variance is the random sample we take to measure our variables.
It may be patients in a health facility, for whom we take various measures of their medical history to estimate their probability of recovery. Or random variability may come from individual students in a school system, and we use demographic information to predict their grade point averages.