Have you ever heard that “2 tall parents will have shorter children”?
This phenomenon, known as regression to the mean, has been used to explain everything from patterns in hereditary stature (as Galton first did in 1886) to why movie sequels or sophomore albums so often flop.
So just what is regression to the mean (RTM)? (more…)
One area in statistics where I see conflicting advice is how to analyze pre-post data. I’ve seen this myself in consulting. A few years ago, I received a call from a distressed client. Let’s call her Nancy.
Nancy had asked for advice about how to run a repeated measures analysis. The advisor told Nancy that actually, a repeated measures analysis was inappropriate for her data.
Nancy was sure repeated measures was appropriate. This advice led her to fear that she had grossly misunderstood a very basic tenet in her statistical training.
Nancy had measured a response variable at two time points for two groups. The intervention group received a treatment and a control group did not. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two groups.
The researcher measured each participant before and after the intervention.
Nancy was sure that this was a classic repeated measures experiment. It has (more…)