Mixed Models

Course goals

ALL PARTICIPANTS WILL BE PLACED ON THE WAITING LIST UNTIL TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE START OF THE COURSE
 
GRADUATE STUDENTS:
Please be aware that you can only select a course option that shows the academic year and is offered Face-to-Face (F2F)
 
POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS:
Please be aware that you can only select a course option that shows the academic year and is offered Face-to-Face (F2F)  or online (depending on your registration)
 
(FYI: the other options are options for Continuing Education (onderwijs voor professionals))


At the end of the course, the student will:

• understand the difference between fixed and random effects;
• know when to apply a mixed model in practice;
• know the most commonly used methods for checking model appropriateness and model fit;
• be able to perform mixed model analyses using statistical software (R, SPSS);
• be able to interpret the output of mixed model analyses in terms of the context of the research question(s);
• be able to report the results of mixed model analyses to non-statistical investigators.

Content

Contact details: Educational Office Epidemiology
E-mail: msc-epidemiology@umcutrecht.nl

Registration:
Face-to-Face: You can register for this course via Osiris Student. More information about the registration procedure can be found here on the Students' site. NOTE Students of the MSc Epidemiology (Post Graduate) that register in time (i.e. at least two weeks before the start of a course) will always be admitted to the course unless it is completely full. Other students will receive information about their application two weeks before the start of the course.
Online: Online courses are only available for Epidemiology Postgraduate students and can register via Osiris Student. More information about the registration procedure can be found here on the Students' site.

Course coordinator:
Dr. R.K. (Rebecca) Stellato, UMC Utrecht, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, Utrecht, the Netherlands

Course description:
In the biosciences, response variables are often observed more than once per individual. This enables the researcher to study the development of the variable of interest within individuals, thereby eliminating the variation among individuals, and thus increasing the power of the design. However, since observations on the same individual are almost always correlated, special methods are needed to deal with this dependence.

Another way in which data can be dependent is when there is a hierarchical (multilevel) structure in your data, e.g. patients within hospitals, horses within farms, pupils within classrooms, etc.

Mixed models are one way of analyzing this kind of data. This statistical technique allows for the dependency of measurements in hierarchically structured data, and separately examines the effects of variables at different levels. An important part of the course will be about the use (and theory) of linear mixed effects models (LME’s).

Starting with analysis of summary statistics on each individual's observations, this course will lead you to more advanced methods for analyzing multilevel and longitudinal data. Similarities between longitudinal data analysis and multilevel analysis will be clarified. The course will focus primarily on continuous outcome variables, but attention will also be paid to dichotomous and count data.

Literature/study material used:
-
  
Mandatory for students in own Master’s programme:
MIght be for a specialization programme of Epidemiology & Epidemiology Postgraduate
 
Optional for students in other GSLS Master’s programme:
Yes
 
Prerequisite knowledge:
Classical Methods in Data Analysis
Modern Methods in Data Analysis (preferred)