Multilevel Modeling

5. Desiderata for Multilevel Research

Exercise 3

This exercise is intended to reinforce the things that should be considered before designing a study and understanding how things may be inter-related.

Below are several hypotheses and core concepts intrinsic to adopting a multilevel perspective. Select which core concept addresses each of the hypotheses below.

Concepts:

• Disentangling contextual and compositional sources of variation
• Examining contextual heterogeneity
• Examining individual heterogeneity
• Examining individual/contextual Interaction

Multilevel hypothesis:

• There is variation in health by geographic units, and it is independent of the variation in age, gender, race and SES by geographic units.
• The effect of gender on BMI varies by neighborhood.
• While women have higher BMI than men, on average, they are also more variable.
• The effect of neighborhood safety (a contextual attribute) on BMI varies by gender (an individual attribute) such that it is stronger for women than men.

Answers:
There is variation in health by geographic units, and it is independent of the variation in age, gender, race and SES by geographic units. [Disentangling contextual and compositional sources of variation]

The effect of gender on BMI varies by neighborhood. [Examining contextual heterogeneity]

While women have higher BMI than men, on average, they are also more variable. [Examining individual heterogeneity]

The effect of neighborhood safety (a contextual attribute) on BMI varies by gender (an individual attribute) such that it is stronger for women than men. [Examining individual/contextual interaction]