Interpreting Interactions

Member Training: Interactions in Poisson and Logistic Regression

May 1st, 2023 by

Interactions in statistical models are never especially easy to interpret. Throw in non-normal outcome variables and non-linear prediction functions and they become even more difficult to understand. (more…)


Centering a Covariate to Improve Interpretability

April 9th, 2021 by

Centering a covariate –a continuous predictor variable–can make regression coefficients much more interpretable. That’s a big advantage, particularly when you have many coefficients to interpret. Or when you’ve included terms that are tricky to interpret, like interactions or quadratic terms.

For example, say you had one categorical predictor with 4 categories and one continuous covariate, plus an interaction between them.

First, you’ll notice that if you center your covariate at the mean, there is (more…)


Your Questions Answered from the Interpreting Regression Coefficients Webinar

November 5th, 2018 by

Last week I had the pleasure of teaching a webinar on Interpreting Regression Coefficients. We walked through the output of a somewhat tricky regression model—it included two dummy-coded categorical variables, a covariate, and a few interactions.

As always seems to happen, our audience asked an amazing number of great questions. (Seriously, I’ve had multiple guest instructors compliment me on our audience and their thoughtful questions.)

We had so many that although I spent about 40 minutes answering (more…)


Using Marginal Means to Explain an Interaction to a Non-Statistical Audience

July 10th, 2018 by

Even with a few years of experience, interpreting the coefficients of interactions in a regression table can take some time to figure out. Trying to explain these coefficients  to a group of non-statistically inclined people is a daunting task.

For example, say you are going to speak to a group of dieticians. They are interested (more…)


Understanding Interactions Between Categorical and Continuous Variables in Linear Regression

May 14th, 2018 by

We’ve looked at the interaction effect between two categorical variables. Now let’s make things a little more interesting, shall we?

What if our predictors of interest, say, are a categorical and a continuous variable? How do we interpret the interaction between the two? (more…)


Interpreting Interactions in Linear Regression: When SPSS and Stata Disagree, Which is Right?

December 20th, 2017 by

Sometimes what is most tricky about understanding your regression output is knowing exactly what your software is presenting to you.

Here’s a great example of what looks like two completely different model results from SPSS and Stata that in reality, agree.

The Model

I ran a linear model regressing “physical composite score” on education and “mental composite score”.

The outcome variable, physical composite score, is a measurement of one’s physical well-being.   The predictor “education” is categorical with four categories.  The other predictor, mental composite score, is continuous and measures one’s mental well-being.

I am interested in determining whether the association between physical composite score and mental composite score is different among the four levels of education. To determine this I included an interaction between mental composite score and education.

The SPSS Regression Output

Here is the result of the regression using SPSS:

(more…)