• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
The Analysis Factor

The Analysis Factor

Statistical Consulting, Resources, and Statistics Workshops for Researchers

  • Home
  • Our Programs
    • Membership
    • Online Workshops
    • Free Webinars
    • Consulting Services
  • About
    • Our Team
    • Our Core Values
    • Our Privacy Policy
    • Employment
    • Collaborate with Us
  • Statistical Resources
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Login

Moderation

To Moderate or to Mediate?

by guest contributer Leave a Comment

by Christos Giannoulis, PhD

We get many questions from clients who use the terms mediator and moderator interchangeably.

They are easy to confuse, yet mediation and moderation are two distinct terms that require distinct statistical approaches.

The key difference between the concepts can be compared to a case where a moderator lets you know when an association will occur while a mediator will inform you how or why it occurs.

[Read more…] about To Moderate or to Mediate?

Tagged With: independent variable, Interaction Terms, mediation, Moderation, Path Analysis, Structural Equation Modeling

Related Posts

  • The Four Models You Meet in Structural Equation Modeling
  • One of the Many Advantages to Running Confirmatory Factor Analysis with a Structural Equation Model
  • First Steps in Structural Equation Modeling: Confirmatory Factor Analysis
  • Member Training: Reporting Structural Equation Modeling Results

Member Training: Mediated Moderation and Moderated Mediation

by guest contributer Leave a Comment

Often a model is not a simple process from a treatment or intervention to the outcome. In essence, the value of X does not always directly predict the value of Y.

Mediators can affect the relationship between X and Y. Moderators can affect the scale and magnitude of that relationship. And sometimes the mediators and moderators affect each other.

[Read more…] about Member Training: Mediated Moderation and Moderated Mediation

Tagged With: analysis, linear regression, mediation, model, moderated, Moderation, Path Analysis

Related Posts

  • Five Common Relationships Among Three Variables in a Statistical Model
  • Member Training: Quantile Regression: Going Beyond the Mean
  • Member Training: Goodness of Fit Statistics
  • Member Training: Preparing to Use (and Interpret) a Linear Regression Model

What’s in a Name? Moderation and Interaction, Independent and Predictor Variables

by Karen Grace-Martin 10 Comments

One of the most confusing things about statistical analysis is the different vocabulary used for the same, or nearly-but-not-quite-the-same, concepts.

Sometimes this happens just because the same analysis was developed separately within different fields and named twice.

So people in different fields use different terms for the same statistical concept.  Try to collaborate with a colleague in a different field and you may find yourself awed by the crazy statistics they’re insisting on.

Other times, there is a level of detail that is implied by one term that isn’t true of the wider, more generic term.  This level of detail is often about how the role of variables or effects affects the interpretation of output. [Read more…] about What’s in a Name? Moderation and Interaction, Independent and Predictor Variables

Tagged With: independent, interaction, Moderation, Path Analysis, predictor variable

Related Posts

  • Confusing Statistical Terms #1: The Many Names of Independent Variables
  • Using Predicted Means to Understand Our Models
  • Actually, you can interpret some main effects in the presence of an interaction
  • Spotlight Analysis for Interpreting Interactions

Five Common Relationships Among Three Variables in a Statistical Model

by Karen Grace-Martin 5 Comments

In a statistical model–any statistical model–there is generally one way that a predictor X and a response Y can relate:

This relationship can take on different forms, of course, like a line or a curve, but there’s really only one relationship here to measure.

Usually the point is to model the predictive ability, the effect, of X on Y.

In other words, there is a clear response variable*, although not necessarily a causal relationship. We could have switched the direction of the arrow to indicate that Y predicts X or used a two-headed arrow to show a correlation, with no direction, but that’s a whole other story.

For our purposes, Y is the response variable and X the predictor.

But a third variable–another predictor–can relate to X and Y in a number of different ways.  How this predictor relates to X and Y changes how we interpret the relationship between X and Y. [Read more…] about Five Common Relationships Among Three Variables in a Statistical Model

Tagged With: interaction, linear regression, mediation, Moderation, Path Analysis

Related Posts

  • Member Training: Mediated Moderation and Moderated Mediation
  • A Visual Description of Multicollinearity
  • Understanding Interactions Between Categorical and Continuous Variables in Linear Regression
  • The Impact of Removing the Constant from a Regression Model: The Categorical Case

3 Tips to Make Interpreting Moderation Effects Easier

by Karen Grace-Martin 7 Comments

Understanding moderation is one of those topics in statistics that is so much harder than it needs to be.

Here are three suggestions to make it just a little easier.

1. Realize that moderation just means an interaction

I have spoken with a number of researchers who are surprised to learn that moderation is just another term for interaction.

Perhaps it’s because moderation often appears with discussions of mediation. Or because we tend to think of interaction as being part of ANOVA, but not regression.

In any case, both an interaction and moderation mean the same thing: the effect of one predictor on a response variable is different at different values of the second predictor. [Read more…] about 3 Tips to Make Interpreting Moderation Effects Easier

Tagged With: interpreting, Moderation

Related Posts

  • Actually, you can interpret some main effects in the presence of an interaction
  • What’s in a Name? Moderation and Interaction, Independent and Predictor Variables
  • Interpreting Regression Coefficients
  • Interpreting Regression Coefficients: Changing the scale of predictor variables

Mediators, Moderators, and Suppressors: What IS the difference?

by Karen Grace-Martin 2 Comments

One of the biggest questions I get is about the difference between mediators, moderators, and how they both differ from control variables.

I recently found a fabulous free video tutorial on the difference between mediators, moderators, and suppressor variables, by Jeremy Taylor at Stats Make Me Cry.   The witty example is about the different types of variables–talent, practice, etc.–that explain the relationship between having a guitar and making lots of $$.


Bookmark and Share

Tagged With: mediation, Moderation, Path Analysis, suppressor variable

Related Posts

  • Five Common Relationships Among Three Variables in a Statistical Model
  • To Moderate or to Mediate?
  • Member Training: Mediated Moderation and Moderated Mediation
  • Member Training: Power Analysis and Sample Size Determination Using Simulation

Primary Sidebar

This Month’s Statistically Speaking Live Training

  • Member Training: Introduction to SPSS Software Tutorial

Upcoming Free Webinars

Poisson and Negative Binomial Regression Models for Count Data

Upcoming Workshops

  • Analyzing Count Data: Poisson, Negative Binomial, and Other Essential Models (Jul 2022)
  • Introduction to Generalized Linear Mixed Models (Jul 2022)

Copyright © 2008–2022 The Analysis Factor, LLC. All rights reserved.
877-272-8096   Contact Us

The Analysis Factor uses cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience of our website. If you continue we assume that you consent to receive cookies on all websites from The Analysis Factor.
Continue Privacy Policy
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT