OptinMon 30 - Four Critical Steps in Building Linear Regression Models

Regression Through the Origin

November 13th, 2008 by

I just wanted to follow up on my last post about Regression without Intercepts.Stage 2

Regression through the Origin means that you purposely drop the intercept from the model.  When X=0, Y must = 0.

The thing to be careful about in choosing any regression model is that it fit the data well.  Pretty much the only time that a regression through the origin will fit better than a model with an intercept is if the point X=0, Y=0 is required by the data.

Yes, leaving out the intercept will increase your df by 1, since you’re not estimating one parameter.  But unless your sample size is really, really small, it won’t matter.  So it really has no advantages.

 


Outliers: To Drop or Not to Drop

September 17th, 2008 by

Should you drop outliers? Outliers are one of those statistical issues that everyone knows about, but most people aren’t sure how to deal with.  Most parametric statistics, like means, standard deviations, and correlations, and every statistic based on these, are highly sensitive to outliers.

And since the assumptions of common statistical procedures, like linear regression and ANOVA, are also based on these statistics, outliers can really mess up your analysis.

stage 1

Despite all this, as much as you’d like to, it is NOT acceptable to

(more…)