[R-sig-ME] 3-level binomial model

Doran, Harold HDoran at air.org
Thu Apr 17 13:59:17 CEST 2008


I haven't really followed this thread, but I'd disagree and say that the
variance components have a very meaningful interpretation. If the fixed
effects are the log-odds of success, then the variance component would
be the variability in the log-odds for whatever units are of interest. 

On the issue of the ICC for the GLMM, to me this is all hocus-pocus.
This is a meaningful statistic in the world of linear models because the
within-person variance (or your level 1 variance) is assumed
homoskedastic. But, this is not true with generalized linear models.

Now, you can compute it as you did by fixing the level 1 variance at the
logistic scale and you can give reviewers whatever they want, but this
doesn't make it meaningful. So, waving a magic wand to make GLMM
estimates look like linear estimates is neat, but I think the better
path is to show your reviewers why this isn't a meaningful statistic. 

On the other hand, if you job is to get past the journal guardians for
tenure, do whatever they ask.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-sig-mixed-models-bounces at r-project.org 
> [mailto:r-sig-mixed-models-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf 
> Of Andrew Robinson
> Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 6:40 PM
> To: Iasonas Lamprianou
> Cc: r-sig-mixed-models at r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [R-sig-ME] 3-level binomial model
> 
> Hi Iasonas,
> 
> my interpretation of what you are doing by computing those 
> quantities is that you are estimating the proportion of 
> variance explained in the linear predictor.  
> 
> A complication with that strategy is that the non-linearity 
> in the relationship between the linear predictor and the 
> probability estimate induces an interaction between the 
> components of variance in terms of their effect upon the 
> probability.  Also, the linear predictor is commonly 
> interpreted in the context of odds ratios (via 
> exponentiation), which again doesn't line up with these 
> variance components because of the non-linearity in the function.
> 
> So, it's not clear to me that the variance components have a 
> direct useful interpretation in this model, although I may be 
> mistaken.
> 
> I seem to recall that Gelman and Hill say sensible things 
> about what to do either in this case or in a similar case, 
> although again I may be mistaken.  I don't have my copy here.
> 
> So it seems to me that the reviewers are right to be 
> cautious, and you might take a look in G&H.
> 
> I hope that  this helps.
> 
> Andrew
> 
> 
> On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 05:51:07AM -0700, Iasonas Lamprianou wrote:
> > Thank you all for your suggestions. My question, however, 
> is how to compute the % of the variance at the level of the 
> school and at the level of the pupils. In other words, does 
> the concept of  intraclass correlation hold in my context? If 
> yes, then how can this be computed for the pupils and the 
> schools? Is the decomposistion below reasonable? 
> > Prof. Bates, maybe you could suggesting something using the lmer?
> > 
> > VPCschool = VARschool/(VARschool+VARpupil+3.29) and 
> >   VPCpupil = VARpupil/(VARschool+VARpupil+3.29)
> >  
> > Dr. Iasonas Lamprianou
> > Department of Education
> > The University of Manchester
> > Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
> > Tel. 0044 161 275 3485
> > iasonas.lamprianou at manchester.ac.uk
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On 16/04/2008, at 12:11 PM, David Duffy wrote:
> > 
> > >> I computed the school-level and the pupil-level variance 
> like that 
> > >> (as described for 2-level models in MlWin manual): I 
> assumed that 
> > >> my dependent variable is based on a continuous 
> unobserved variable 
> > >> (perfectly valid according to my theoretical model). Therefore, 
> > >> eijk follows a logistic distribution with variance 
> pi2/3=3.29. So,
> > >
> > >> VPCschool=VARschool/(VARschool+3.29)= 
> 0.17577/(0.17577+3.29)=6.4% 
> > >> and VPCpupil=VPCpupil 
> /(VPCpupil+3.29)=0.19977/(0.19977+3.29)=7.3%.
> > >
> > >> The reviewers of my paper are not sure if this is the 
> best way to 
> > >> do it. They may reject my paper and I worry because I have spent 
> > >> 3months!!!! writing it. Any ideas to support my method 
> or to use a 
> > >> better one?
> > >
> > > Would an IRT model for seven "items" be more to their taste?  I 
> > > don't think the substantive conclusions would be much different.
> > >
> > 
> > Multi-level IRT is more appropriate, this allows for the nesting 
> > within schools. There is a package mlirt that fits these 
> models in a 
> > Bayesian framework, but I haven't tried it. There are commercial 
> > programs which will fit these, Mplus is advertised to and 
> Latent Gold 
> > with the Syntax module will, at least for a unidimensional latent 
> > variable.
> > 
> > What is more worrying is the assumption of a single latent 
> variable to 
> > model the correlation between tests.
> > 
> > Ken
> > 
> > 
> > 
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> --
> Andrew Robinson  
> Department of Mathematics and Statistics            Tel: 
> +61-3-8344-6410
> University of Melbourne, VIC 3010 Australia         Fax: 
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