[R-sig-ME] Nested model variance/parameter value

[Karl Ove Hufthammer]

N o s t a l g i a skreiv 10.12.2021 12:29:
> Since I got an error message saying "models were not all fitted to the 
> same size of dataset" while running anova(), I compared the AICs and 
> concluded that model2 is the best model of the three.

No, model 2 has the *highest* AIC, and based on AIC, it would be the 
*worst* model. The best model would be the one with the lowest AIC. 
(Also, it doesn’t seem realistic to assume no random effect for the 
interviewees, so I would also dismiss model 2 based on *theoretical* 
grounds.)

But in this case, comparing the AICs (or log likelihood) is actually 
*not* valid, as the data were not fitted to the same dataset (something 
which anova() warns you about). In model 3, you have 3294 observations, 
but in model 1 and 2, you only have 3283 observations. The only 
difference between the models is that model 3 doesn’t include the ‘intv’ 
variable. In other words, for 11 responses, you don’t know who the 
interviewer was.

So you have to refit the models to the *same* dataset, e.g., by removing 
the observation where ‘is.na(intv)’ before fitting the models.


-- 
Karl Ove Hufthammer