Like the chicken and the egg, there’s a question about which comes first: run a model or test assumptions? Unlike the chickens’, the model’s question has an easy answer.
There are two types of assumptions in a statistical model. Some are distributional assumptions about the residuals. Examples include independence, normality, and constant variance in a linear model.
Others are about the form of the model. They include linearity and (more…)
If you have significant a significant interaction effect and non-significant main effects, would you interpret the interaction effect?
It’s a question I get pretty often, and it’s a more straightforward answer than most.
Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) is a type of linear model that combines the best abilities of linear regression with the best of Analysis of Variance.
It allows you to test differences in group means and interactions, just like ANOVA, while covarying out the effect of a continuous covariate.
Through examples and graphs, we’ll talk about what it really means to covary out the effect of a continuous variable and how to interpret results.
Primary to the discussion will be when ANCOVA is and is not appropriate and how correlations and interactions between the covariate and the independent variables affect interpretation.
Note: This training is an exclusive benefit to members of the Statistically Speaking Membership Program and part of the Stat’s Amore Trainings Series. Each Stat’s Amore Training is approximately 90 minutes long.
Karen Grace-Martin helps statistics practitioners gain an intuitive understanding of how statistics is applied to real data in research studies.
She has guided and trained researchers through their statistical analysis for over 15 years as a statistical consultant at Cornell University and through The Analysis Factor. She has master’s degrees in both applied statistics and social psychology and is an expert in SPSS and SAS.
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One of those “rules” about statistics you often hear is that you can’t interpret a main effect in the presence of an interaction.
Stats professors seem particularly good at drilling this into students’ brains.
Unfortunately, it’s not true.
At least not always. (more…)
How should I build my model?
I get this question a lot, and it’s difficult to answer at first glance–it depends too much on your particular situation.
There are really three parts to the approach to building a model: the strategy, the technique to implement that strategy, and the decision criteria used within the technique. (more…)
Repeated measures ANOVA is the approach most of us learned in stats classes for repeated measures and longitudinal data. It works very well in certain designs.
But it’s limited in what it can do. Sometimes trying to fit a data set into a repeated measures ANOVA requires too much data gymnastics.