A course in quantitative research workflow for students in the higher education administration program at the University of Florida
In this lesson, we’ll move beyond t.tests to regression. As before, this lesson is too short to stand in for a full course on regression analyses. However, it should give you the basics of how to fit regression and store key parameters. We’ll also cover the basics of prediction and the estimate of marginal “effects” (nothing causal here!).
In this lesson, we’ll use the same data from the NCES Education Longitudinal Study of 2002. So you don’t have to go back to the prior lesson, here again is a codebook with descriptions of the variables included in our lesson today:
| variable | description |
|---|---|
| stu_id | student id |
| sch_id | school id |
| strat_id | stratum |
| psu | primary sampling unit |
| bystuwt | student weight |
| bysex | sex-composite |
| byrace | student’s race/ethnicity-composite |
| bydob_p | student’s year and month of birth |
| bypared | parents’ highest level of education |
| bymothed | mother’s highest level of education-composite |
| byfathed | father’s highest level of education-composite |
| byincome | total family income from all sources 2001-composite |
| byses1 | socio-economic status composite, v.1 |
| byses2 | socio-economic status composite, v.2 |
| bystexp | how far in school student thinks will get-composite |
| bynels2m | els-nels 1992 scale equated sophomore math score |
| bynels2r | els-nels 1992 scale equated sophomore reading score |
| f1qwt | questionnaire weight for f1 |
| f1pnlwt | panel weight, by and f1 (2002 and 2004) |
| f1psepln | f1 post-secondary plans right after high school |
| f2ps1sec | Sector of first postsecondary institution |
| female | == 1 if female |
| moth_ba | == 1 if mother has BA/BS |
| fath_ba | == 1 if father has BA/BS |
| par_ba | == 1 if either parent has BA/BS |
| plan_col_grad | == 1 if student plans to earn college degree |
| lowinc | == 1 if income < $25k |
We’ll load the same libraries and data!
## ---------------------------
## libraries
## ---------------------------
library(tidyverse)
## ── Attaching core tidyverse packages ──────────────────────── tidyverse 2.0.0 ──
## ✔ dplyr 1.1.1 ✔ readr 2.1.4
## ✔ forcats 1.0.0 ✔ stringr 1.5.0
## ✔ ggplot2 3.4.2 ✔ tibble 3.2.1
## ✔ lubridate 1.9.2 ✔ tidyr 1.3.0
## ✔ purrr 1.0.1
## ── Conflicts ────────────────────────────────────────── tidyverse_conflicts() ──
## ✖ dplyr::filter() masks stats::filter()
## ✖ dplyr::lag() masks stats::lag()
## ℹ Use the conflicted package (<http://conflicted.r-lib.org/>) to force all conflicts to become errors
library(haven)
library(survey)
## Loading required package: grid
## Loading required package: Matrix
##
## Attaching package: 'Matrix'
##
## The following objects are masked from 'package:tidyr':
##
## expand, pack, unpack
##
## Loading required package: survival
##
## Attaching package: 'survey'
##
## The following object is masked from 'package:graphics':
##
## dotchart
## ---------------------------
## directory paths
## ---------------------------
## assume we're running this script from the ./scripts subdirectory
dat_dir <- file.path("..", "data")
## ---------------------------
## input data
## ---------------------------
## assume we're running this script from the ./scripts subdirectory
df <- read_dta(file.path(dat_dir, "els_plans.dta"))
Linear models are the go-to method of making inferences for many data
analysts. In R, the lm() command is used to compute an ordinary
least squares (OLS)
regression. Unlike above, where we just let the t.test() output
print to the console, we can and will store the output in an object.
First, let’s compute the same t-test as in the prior inferential
lesson, but in a regression framework. This time, we’ll assume equal
variances between the distributions in the t-test above (var.equal =
TRUE), so we should get the same results as we did before.
## t-test of difference in math scores across parental education (BA/BA or not)
t.test(bynels2m ~ par_ba, data = df, var.equal = TRUE)
##
## Two Sample t-test
##
## data: bynels2m by par_ba
## t = -38.54, df = 15234, p-value < 2.2e-16
## alternative hypothesis: true difference in means between group 0 and group 1 is not equal to 0
## 95 percent confidence interval:
## -8.669138 -7.830008
## sample estimates:
## mean in group 0 mean in group 1
## 41.97543 50.22501
## compute same test as above, but in a linear model
fit <- lm(bynels2m ~ par_ba, data = df)
fit
##
## Call:
## lm(formula = bynels2m ~ par_ba, data = df)
##
## Coefficients:
## (Intercept) par_ba
## 41.98 8.25
The output is a little thin: just the coefficients. To see the full
range of information you want from regression output, use the
summary() function wrapped around the fit object.
## use summary to see more information about regression
summary(fit)
##
## Call:
## lm(formula = bynels2m ~ par_ba, data = df)
##
## Residuals:
## Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
## -35.515 -9.685 0.595 9.885 37.015
##
## Coefficients:
## Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
## (Intercept) 41.9754 0.1375 305.35 <2e-16 ***
## par_ba 8.2496 0.2141 38.54 <2e-16 ***
## ---
## Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
##
## Residual standard error: 13.01 on 15234 degrees of freedom
## (924 observations deleted due to missingness)
## Multiple R-squared: 0.08884, Adjusted R-squared: 0.08878
## F-statistic: 1485 on 1 and 15234 DF, p-value: < 2.2e-16
We’ll more fully discuss this output in the next section. For now, let’s compare the key findings to those returned from the t test.
Because our right-hand side (RHS) variable is an indicator variable
that == 0 for parents without a BA/BS or higher and == 1 if either
parent has a BA/BS or higher, then the intercept reflects the math
test score for students when par_ba == 0. This matches the mean in
group 0 value from the t test above.
In a regression framework, the coefficient on par_ba is the marginal
difference when par_ba increases by one unit. Since pared is the
only parameter on the RHS (besides the intercept) and only takes on
values 0 and 1, we can add its coefficient to the intercept to get the
math test score mean for students with parents with a BA/BS or higher.
## add intercept and par_ba coefficient
fit$coefficients[["(Intercept)"]] + fit$coefficients[["par_ba"]]
## [1] 50.22501
Looks like this value matches what we saw before (within
rounding). Going the other way, the coefficient on par_ba, 8.2495729,
is the same as the difference between the
groups in the t test. Finally, notice that the absolute value of the
test statistic for the t test and the par_ba coefficient are the
same value: 38.54. Success!
To fit a multiple regression, use the same formula framework that
we’ve use before with the addition of all the terms you want on
right-hand side of the equation separated by plus (+) signs.
NB From here on out, we’ll spend less time interpreting the regression results so that we can focus on the tools of running regressions. That said, let me know if you have questions of interpretation.
## linear model with more than one covariate on the RHS
fit <- lm(bynels2m ~ byses1 + female + moth_ba + fath_ba + lowinc,
data = df)
summary(fit)
##
## Call:
## lm(formula = bynels2m ~ byses1 + female + moth_ba + fath_ba +
## lowinc, data = df)
##
## Residuals:
## Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
## -39.456 -8.775 0.432 9.110 40.921
##
## Coefficients:
## Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
## (Intercept) 45.7155 0.1811 252.420 < 2e-16 ***
## byses1 6.8058 0.2387 28.511 < 2e-16 ***
## female -1.1483 0.1985 -5.784 7.42e-09 ***
## moth_ba 0.4961 0.2892 1.715 0.08631 .
## fath_ba 0.8242 0.2903 2.840 0.00452 **
## lowinc -2.1425 0.2947 -7.271 3.75e-13 ***
## ---
## Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
##
## Residual standard error: 12.24 on 15230 degrees of freedom
## (924 observations deleted due to missingness)
## Multiple R-squared: 0.1929, Adjusted R-squared: 0.1926
## F-statistic: 728.1 on 5 and 15230 DF, p-value: < 2.2e-16
The full output tells you:
Call:Estimate)Std. Error)t value with this model)Pr(>|t|)). and *) along with legendMultiple R-squared and Adjusted
R-squared)F-statistic)If observations were dropped due to missing values (lm() does this
automatically by default), you can recover the number of observations
actually used with the nobs() function.
## check number of observations
nobs(fit)
## [1] 15236
The fit object also holds a lot of other information that is
sometimes useful.
## see what fit object holds
names(fit)
## [1] "coefficients" "residuals" "effects" "rank"
## [5] "fitted.values" "assign" "qr" "df.residual"
## [9] "na.action" "xlevels" "call" "terms"
## [13] "model"
In addition to the coefficients, which you pulled out of the first
model, both fitted.values and residuals are stored in the
object. You can access these “hidden” attributes by treating the fit
object like a data frame and using the $ notation.
## see first few fitted values and residuals
head(fit$fitted.values)
## 1 2 3 4 5 6
## 42.86583 48.51465 38.78234 36.98010 32.82855 38.43332
head(fit$residuals)
## 1 2 3 4 5 6
## 4.974173 6.785347 27.457659 -1.650095 -2.858552 -14.153323
Quick exercise
Add the fitted values to the residuals and store in an object (
x). Compare these values to the math scores in the data frame.
As a final note, the model matrix used fit the regression can be
retrieved using model.matrix(). Since we have a lot of observations,
we’ll just look at the first few rows.
## see the design matrix
head(model.matrix(fit))
## (Intercept) byses1 female moth_ba fath_ba lowinc
## 1 1 -0.25 1 0 0 0
## 2 1 0.58 1 0 0 0
## 3 1 -0.85 1 0 0 0
## 4 1 -0.80 1 0 0 1
## 5 1 -1.41 1 0 0 1
## 6 1 -1.07 0 0 0 0
What this shows is that the fit object actually stores a copy of the
data used to run it. That’s really convenient if you want to save the
object to disk (with the save() function) so you can review the
regression results later. But keep in mind that if you share that
file, you are sharing the part of the data used to estimate
it. Because a lot of education data is restricted in some way — via
memorandums of understanding (MOUs) or IRB — be careful about
sharing the saved output object. Typically you’ll only share the
results in a table or figure, but just be aware.
It’s not necessary to pre-construct dummy variables if you want to use
a categorical variable in your model. Instead you can use the
categorical variable wrapped in the factor() function. This tells R
that the underlying variable shouldn’t be treated as a continuous
value, but should be discrete groups. R will make the dummy variables
on the fly when fitting the model. We’ll include the categorical
variable bystexp in this model.
## check values of student expectations
df %>%
count(bystexp)
## # A tibble: 9 × 2
## bystexp n
## <dbl+lbl> <int>
## 1 -1 [{don^t know}] 1450
## 2 1 [less than high school graduation] 128
## 3 2 [high school graduation or ged only] 983
## 4 3 [attend or complete 2-year college/school] 879
## 5 4 [attend college, 4-year degree incomplete] 561
## 6 5 [graduate from college] 5416
## 7 6 [obtain master^s degree or equivalent] 3153
## 8 7 [obtain phd, md, or other advanced degree] 2666
## 9 NA 924
Even though student expectations of eventual degree attainment are roughly ordered, let’s use them in our model as discrete groups. That way we can leave in “Don’t know” and don’t have to worry about that “attend college, 4-year degree incomplete” is somehow higher than “attend or complete 2-year college/school”.
## add factors
fit <- lm(bynels2m ~ byses1 + female + moth_ba + fath_ba
+ lowinc + factor(bystexp),
data = df)
summary(fit)
##
## Call:
## lm(formula = bynels2m ~ byses1 + female + moth_ba + fath_ba +
## lowinc + factor(bystexp), data = df)
##
## Residuals:
## Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
## -41.680 -8.267 0.541 8.423 38.696
##
## Coefficients:
## Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
## (Intercept) 42.9534 0.3366 127.603 < 2e-16 ***
## byses1 5.1616 0.2297 22.468 < 2e-16 ***
## female -2.3828 0.1909 -12.481 < 2e-16 ***
## moth_ba 0.4119 0.2742 1.502 0.1331
## fath_ba 0.6250 0.2754 2.270 0.0232 *
## lowinc -2.2017 0.2794 -7.880 3.50e-15 ***
## factor(bystexp)1 -10.0569 1.0710 -9.390 < 2e-16 ***
## factor(bystexp)2 -5.4527 0.4813 -11.329 < 2e-16 ***
## factor(bystexp)3 -1.2000 0.4966 -2.416 0.0157 *
## factor(bystexp)4 -3.5317 0.5771 -6.119 9.62e-10 ***
## factor(bystexp)5 3.6345 0.3446 10.546 < 2e-16 ***
## factor(bystexp)6 7.6366 0.3736 20.442 < 2e-16 ***
## factor(bystexp)7 7.5114 0.3860 19.460 < 2e-16 ***
## ---
## Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
##
## Residual standard error: 11.6 on 15223 degrees of freedom
## (924 observations deleted due to missingness)
## Multiple R-squared: 0.2754, Adjusted R-squared: 0.2748
## F-statistic: 482.1 on 12 and 15223 DF, p-value: < 2.2e-16
If you’re using labeled data like we have been for the past couple of
modules, you can use the as_factor() function from
the
haven library in
place of the base factor() function. You’ll still see the
as_factor(<var>) prefix on each coefficient, but now you’ll have
labels instead of the underlying values, which should make parsing the
output a little easier.
## same model, but use as_factor() instead of factor() to use labels
fit <- lm(bynels2m ~ byses1 + female + moth_ba + fath_ba
+ lowinc + as_factor(bystexp),
data = df)
summary(fit)
##
## Call:
## lm(formula = bynels2m ~ byses1 + female + moth_ba + fath_ba +
## lowinc + as_factor(bystexp), data = df)
##
## Residuals:
## Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
## -41.680 -8.267 0.541 8.423 38.696
##
## Coefficients:
## Estimate Std. Error
## (Intercept) 42.9534 0.3366
## byses1 5.1616 0.2297
## female -2.3828 0.1909
## moth_ba 0.4119 0.2742
## fath_ba 0.6250 0.2754
## lowinc -2.2017 0.2794
## as_factor(bystexp)less than high school graduation -10.0569 1.0710
## as_factor(bystexp)high school graduation or ged only -5.4527 0.4813
## as_factor(bystexp)attend or complete 2-year college/school -1.2000 0.4966
## as_factor(bystexp)attend college, 4-year degree incomplete -3.5317 0.5771
## as_factor(bystexp)graduate from college 3.6345 0.3446
## as_factor(bystexp)obtain master^s degree or equivalent 7.6366 0.3736
## as_factor(bystexp)obtain phd, md, or other advanced degree 7.5114 0.3860
## t value Pr(>|t|)
## (Intercept) 127.603 < 2e-16 ***
## byses1 22.468 < 2e-16 ***
## female -12.481 < 2e-16 ***
## moth_ba 1.502 0.1331
## fath_ba 2.270 0.0232 *
## lowinc -7.880 3.50e-15 ***
## as_factor(bystexp)less than high school graduation -9.390 < 2e-16 ***
## as_factor(bystexp)high school graduation or ged only -11.329 < 2e-16 ***
## as_factor(bystexp)attend or complete 2-year college/school -2.416 0.0157 *
## as_factor(bystexp)attend college, 4-year degree incomplete -6.119 9.62e-10 ***
## as_factor(bystexp)graduate from college 10.546 < 2e-16 ***
## as_factor(bystexp)obtain master^s degree or equivalent 20.442 < 2e-16 ***
## as_factor(bystexp)obtain phd, md, or other advanced degree 19.460 < 2e-16 ***
## ---
## Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
##
## Residual standard error: 11.6 on 15223 degrees of freedom
## (924 observations deleted due to missingness)
## Multiple R-squared: 0.2754, Adjusted R-squared: 0.2748
## F-statistic: 482.1 on 12 and 15223 DF, p-value: < 2.2e-16
If you look at the model matrix, you can see how R created the dummy
variables from bystexp: adding new columns of only 0/1s that
correspond to the bystexp value of each student.
## see what R did under the hood to convert categorical to dummies
head(model.matrix(fit))
## (Intercept) byses1 female moth_ba fath_ba lowinc
## 1 1 -0.25 1 0 0 0
## 2 1 0.58 1 0 0 0
## 3 1 -0.85 1 0 0 0
## 4 1 -0.80 1 0 0 1
## 5 1 -1.41 1 0 0 1
## 6 1 -1.07 0 0 0 0
## as_factor(bystexp)less than high school graduation
## 1 0
## 2 0
## 3 0
## 4 0
## 5 0
## 6 0
## as_factor(bystexp)high school graduation or ged only
## 1 0
## 2 0
## 3 0
## 4 0
## 5 0
## 6 0
## as_factor(bystexp)attend or complete 2-year college/school
## 1 1
## 2 0
## 3 0
## 4 0
## 5 0
## 6 0
## as_factor(bystexp)attend college, 4-year degree incomplete
## 1 0
## 2 0
## 3 0
## 4 0
## 5 0
## 6 1
## as_factor(bystexp)graduate from college
## 1 0
## 2 0
## 3 0
## 4 1
## 5 1
## 6 0
## as_factor(bystexp)obtain master^s degree or equivalent
## 1 0
## 2 0
## 3 0
## 4 0
## 5 0
## 6 0
## as_factor(bystexp)obtain phd, md, or other advanced degree
## 1 0
## 2 1
## 3 0
## 4 0
## 5 0
## 6 0
Quick exercise
Add the categorical variable
byincometo the model above. Next usemodel.matrix()to check the RHS matrix.
Add interactions to a regression using an asterisks (*) between the
terms you want to interact. This will add both main terms and the
interaction(s) between the two to the model. Any interaction terms
will be labeled using the base name or factor name of each term
joined by a colon (:).
## add interactions
fit <- lm(bynels2m ~ byses1 + factor(bypared)*lowinc, data = df)
summary(fit)
##
## Call:
## lm(formula = bynels2m ~ byses1 + factor(bypared) * lowinc, data = df)
##
## Residuals:
## Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
## -38.998 -8.852 0.326 9.063 39.257
##
## Coefficients:
## Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
## (Intercept) 44.0084 0.6345 69.355 < 2e-16 ***
## byses1 7.6082 0.2772 27.448 < 2e-16 ***
## factor(bypared)2 1.5546 0.6544 2.376 0.017533 *
## factor(bypared)3 0.6534 0.7136 0.916 0.359863
## factor(bypared)4 1.8902 0.7198 2.626 0.008646 **
## factor(bypared)5 1.5059 0.7200 2.091 0.036501 *
## factor(bypared)6 1.4527 0.7386 1.967 0.049235 *
## factor(bypared)7 2.0044 0.8286 2.419 0.015569 *
## factor(bypared)8 0.8190 0.9239 0.887 0.375360
## lowinc 2.0347 0.8112 2.508 0.012140 *
## factor(bypared)2:lowinc -2.9955 0.9298 -3.222 0.001278 **
## factor(bypared)3:lowinc -4.0551 1.0682 -3.796 0.000147 ***
## factor(bypared)4:lowinc -4.8143 1.1126 -4.327 1.52e-05 ***
## factor(bypared)5:lowinc -4.6890 1.0947 -4.283 1.85e-05 ***
## factor(bypared)6:lowinc -4.5252 1.0556 -4.287 1.82e-05 ***
## factor(bypared)7:lowinc -7.2222 1.3796 -5.235 1.67e-07 ***
## factor(bypared)8:lowinc -9.8773 1.6110 -6.131 8.94e-10 ***
## ---
## Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
##
## Residual standard error: 12.23 on 15219 degrees of freedom
## (924 observations deleted due to missingness)
## Multiple R-squared: 0.1948, Adjusted R-squared: 0.194
## F-statistic: 230.2 on 16 and 15219 DF, p-value: < 2.2e-16
To add quadratic and other polynomial terms to the model, use the
I() function, which lets you raise the term to the power you want in
the regression using the caret (^) operator. In the model below, we
add a quadratic version of the reading score to the right-hand side.
## add polynomials
fit <- lm(bynels2m ~ bynels2r + I(bynels2r^2), data = df)
summary(fit)
##
## Call:
## lm(formula = bynels2m ~ bynels2r + I(bynels2r^2), data = df)
##
## Residuals:
## Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
## -33.462 -5.947 -0.156 5.780 46.645
##
## Coefficients:
## Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
## (Intercept) 12.7765815 0.6241194 20.471 <2e-16 ***
## bynels2r 1.1197116 0.0447500 25.021 <2e-16 ***
## I(bynels2r^2) -0.0006246 0.0007539 -0.828 0.407
## ---
## Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
##
## Residual standard error: 8.921 on 15881 degrees of freedom
## (276 observations deleted due to missingness)
## Multiple R-squared: 0.5658, Adjusted R-squared: 0.5657
## F-statistic: 1.035e+04 on 2 and 15881 DF, p-value: < 2.2e-16
Quick exercise
Fit a linear model with both interactions and a polynomial term. Then look at the model matrix to see what R did under the hood.
In some cases when you have binary outcomes — 0/1 — it may be
appropriate to continue using regular OLS, fitting what is typically
called a linear probability model or
LPM. In those
cases, just use lm() as you have been.
But in other cases, you’ll want to fit a generalized linear
model, in
which case you’ll need to switch to the glm() function. It is set up
just like lm(), but it has an extra argument, family. Set the
argument to binomial() when your dependent variable is binary. By
default, the link function is a
logit link.
## logit
fit <- glm(plan_col_grad ~ bynels2m + as_factor(bypared),
data = df,
family = binomial())
summary(fit)
##
## Call:
## glm(formula = plan_col_grad ~ bynels2m + as_factor(bypared),
## family = binomial(), data = df)
##
## Deviance Residuals:
## Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
## -2.6467 -0.9581 0.5211 0.7695 1.5815
##
## Coefficients:
## Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)
## (Intercept) -1.824413 0.090000 -20.271 < 2e-16 ***
## bynels2m 0.056427 0.001636 34.491 < 2e-16 ***
## as_factor(bypared)hsged 0.042315 0.079973 0.529 0.5967
## as_factor(bypared)att2yr 0.204831 0.088837 2.306 0.0211 *
## as_factor(bypared)grad2ry 0.480828 0.092110 5.220 1.79e-07 ***
## as_factor(bypared)att4yr 0.499019 0.090558 5.511 3.58e-08 ***
## as_factor(bypared)grad4yr 0.754817 0.084271 8.957 < 2e-16 ***
## as_factor(bypared)ma 0.943558 0.101585 9.288 < 2e-16 ***
## as_factor(bypared)phprof 1.052006 0.121849 8.634 < 2e-16 ***
## ---
## Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
##
## (Dispersion parameter for binomial family taken to be 1)
##
## Null deviance: 17545 on 15235 degrees of freedom
## Residual deviance: 15371 on 15227 degrees of freedom
## (924 observations deleted due to missingness)
## AIC: 15389
##
## Number of Fisher Scoring iterations: 4
If you want a probit
model, just change the link to probit.
## probit
fit <- glm(plan_col_grad ~ bynels2m + as_factor(bypared),
data = df,
family = binomial(link = "probit"))
summary(fit)
##
## Call:
## glm(formula = plan_col_grad ~ bynels2m + as_factor(bypared),
## family = binomial(link = "probit"), data = df)
##
## Deviance Residuals:
## Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
## -2.7665 -0.9796 0.5238 0.7812 1.5517
##
## Coefficients:
## Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)
## (Intercept) -1.0522131 0.0539072 -19.519 < 2e-16 ***
## bynels2m 0.0326902 0.0009357 34.938 < 2e-16 ***
## as_factor(bypared)hsged 0.0325415 0.0488225 0.667 0.5051
## as_factor(bypared)att2yr 0.1316456 0.0539301 2.441 0.0146 *
## as_factor(bypared)grad2ry 0.2958810 0.0554114 5.340 9.31e-08 ***
## as_factor(bypared)att4yr 0.3065176 0.0544813 5.626 1.84e-08 ***
## as_factor(bypared)grad4yr 0.4553127 0.0505009 9.016 < 2e-16 ***
## as_factor(bypared)ma 0.5525198 0.0588352 9.391 < 2e-16 ***
## as_factor(bypared)phprof 0.6115358 0.0688820 8.878 < 2e-16 ***
## ---
## Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
##
## (Dispersion parameter for binomial family taken to be 1)
##
## Null deviance: 17545 on 15235 degrees of freedom
## Residual deviance: 15379 on 15227 degrees of freedom
## (924 observations deleted due to missingness)
## AIC: 15397
##
## Number of Fisher Scoring iterations: 4
Note that the interpretation of parameters in logit and probit models differs from that in linear model with a normal / gaussian link function. For example, a one-unit change for a parameter in a logistic regression is associated with a change in log odds of the outcome, \(log(\frac{p}{1-p})\) , holding all other values at some fixed value (their means, for example). If this doesn’t sound particularly interpretable, it’s not! This is one reason people continue to use linear probability models (LPMs) rather than logits/probits (there are other reasons too). As always, make the choice that best fits your data, research questions, and intended audience.
Quick exercise
Fit a logit or probit model to another binary outcome.
We spent time in the Inferential I lesson on setting up a data frame that accounted for survey weights. Review that if need a reminder of the intuition.
Important for this lesson is that you can (and should!) use survey
weights in a regression framework. As a reminder, here’s the
information you need to set up the svydesign() that accounts for
ELS’s complex sampling design:
ids are the primary sampling units or psusstrata are indicated by the strat_idsweight is the base-year student weight or bystuwtdata is our data frame object, dfnest = TRUE because the psus are nested in strat_idsBefore running our survey-weighted regression, we’ll once again set up our data in a new object.
## subset data
svy_df <- df %>%
select(psu, # primary sampling unit
strat_id, # stratum ID
bystuwt, # weight we want to use
bynels2m, # variables we want...
moth_ba,
fath_ba,
par_ba,
byses1,
lowinc,
female) %>%
## go ahead and drop observations with missing values
drop_na()
## set svy design data
svy_df <- svydesign(ids = ~psu,
strata = ~strat_id,
weight = ~bystuwt,
data = svy_df,
nest = TRUE)
Now that we’ve done that, here’s how we run a weighted
regression. Notice that it’s svyglm(), even though we used lm()
before (the default "link" function in glm() is gaussian or
normal; if we had binary outcomes and wanted to use a logit link then
we could include family = binomial() as we did before).
## fit the svyglm regression and show output
svyfit <- svyglm(bynels2m ~ byses1 + female + moth_ba + fath_ba + lowinc,
design = svy_df)
summary(svyfit)
##
## Call:
## svyglm(formula = bynels2m ~ byses1 + female + moth_ba + fath_ba +
## lowinc, design = svy_df)
##
## Survey design:
## svydesign(ids = ~psu, strata = ~strat_id, weight = ~bystuwt,
## data = svy_df, nest = TRUE)
##
## Coefficients:
## Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
## (Intercept) 45.2221 0.2710 166.867 < 2e-16 ***
## byses1 6.9470 0.2913 23.849 < 2e-16 ***
## female -1.0715 0.2441 -4.389 1.47e-05 ***
## moth_ba 0.6633 0.3668 1.809 0.0713 .
## fath_ba 0.5670 0.3798 1.493 0.1363
## lowinc -2.4860 0.3644 -6.822 3.49e-11 ***
## ---
## Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
##
## (Dispersion parameter for gaussian family taken to be 150.5809)
##
## Number of Fisher Scoring iterations: 2
As when compared t.test results when using unweighted and weighted data, our regression results are little different when using the weights. As a reminder, there’s no single quick answer to using weights in a regression framework. It’s up to you and your investigation of the code book to decide:
Being able to generate predictions from new data can be a powerful
tool. Above, we were able to return the predicted values from the fit
object. We can also use the predict() function to return the
standard error of the prediction in addition to the predicted values
for new observations.
First, we’ll get predicted values using the original data along with their standard errors.
## predict from first model
fit <- lm(bynels2m ~ byses1 + female + moth_ba + fath_ba + lowinc,
data = df)
## old data
fit_pred <- predict(fit, se.fit = TRUE)
## show options
names(fit_pred)
## [1] "fit" "se.fit" "df" "residual.scale"
head(fit_pred$fit)
## 1 2 3 4 5 6
## 42.86583 48.51465 38.78234 36.98010 32.82855 38.43332
head(fit_pred$se.fit)
## [1] 0.1755431 0.2587681 0.2314676 0.2396327 0.2737971 0.2721818
With the standard errors, we can get a better feel for how much faith we want to put in our predictions. If the standard errors are low, then maybe we feel more secure than if the errors are large. Alternatively, perhaps the errors are uniformly lower for some parts of our data than others. If so, that might suggest more investigation or a note on the limitations of our predictions for parts of the sample.
We won’t practice these since in application they work similarly to what we did above. However, I do want to note two other types of predictions that you might want to make. Both involve making predictions for data that you didn’t use to fit your model. Predictions using new data or held-out data in a train/test framework are another way to evaluate your model. If you predict well to new/held-out data, that can be a good sign for the utility of your model.
Ideally, we would have a new observations with which to make predictions. Then we could test our modeling choices by seeing how well they predicted the outcomes of the new observations.
With discrete outcomes (like binary 0/1 data), for example, we could use our model and right-hand side variables from new observations to predict whether the new observation should have a 0 or 1 outcome. Then we could compare those predictions to the actual observed outcomes by making a 2 by 2 confusion matrix that counted the numbers of true positives and negatives (correct predictions) and false positives and negatives (incorrect predictions).
With continuous outcomes, we could follow the same procedure as above, but rather than using a confusion matrix, instead assess our model performance by measuring the error between our predictions and the observed outcomes. Depending on our problem and model, we might care about minimizing the root mean square error, the mean absolute error, or some other metric of the error.
In the absence of new data, we instead could have separated our data into two data sets, a training set and test set. After fitting our model to the training data, we could have tested it by following either above procedure with the testing data (depending on the outcome type). Setting a rule for ourselves, we could evaluate how well we did, that is, how well our training data model classified test data outcomes, and perhaps decide to adjust our modeling assumptions. This is a fundamental way that many machine learning algorithm assess fit.
Using the predict() function alongside some other skills we have
practiced, we can also make predictions on the margin a la
Stata’s
-margins- suite of commands.
For example, after fitting our multiple regression, we might ask ourselves, what is the marginal association of coming from a family with low income on math scores, holding all other terms in our model constant? In other words, if student A and student B are similar along dimensions we can observe (let’s say the average student in our sample) except for the fact that student A’s family is considered lower income and student B’s is not, what if any test score difference might we expect?
To answer this question, we first need to make a “new” data frame with a column each for the variables used in the model and rows that equal the number of predictive margins that we want to create. In our example, that means making a data frame with two rows and five columns.
With lowinc, the variable that we want to make marginal predictions
for, we have two potential values: 0 and 1. This is the reason our
“new” data frame has two rows. If lowinc took on four values, for
example, then our “new” data frame would have four rows, one for each
potential value. But since we have two, lowinc in our “new” data frame
will equal 0 in one row and 1 in the other row.
All other columns in the “new” data frame should have consistent
values down their rows. Often, each column’s repeated value is the
variable’s average in the data. Though we could use the original data
frame (df) to generate these averages, the resulting values may
summarize different data from what was used to fit the model if there
were observations that lm() dropped due to missing values. That
happened with our model. We could try to use the original data frame
and account for dropped observations, but I think it’s easier to use
the design matrix that’s retrieved from model.matrix().
The code below goes step-by-step to make the “new” data frame.
## create new data that has two rows, with averages and one marginal change
## (1) save model matrix
mm <- model.matrix(fit)
head(mm)
## (Intercept) byses1 female moth_ba fath_ba lowinc
## 1 1 -0.25 1 0 0 0
## 2 1 0.58 1 0 0 0
## 3 1 -0.85 1 0 0 0
## 4 1 -0.80 1 0 0 1
## 5 1 -1.41 1 0 0 1
## 6 1 -1.07 0 0 0 0
## (2) drop intercept column of ones (predict() doesn't need them)
mm <- mm[,-1]
head(mm)
## byses1 female moth_ba fath_ba lowinc
## 1 -0.25 1 0 0 0
## 2 0.58 1 0 0 0
## 3 -0.85 1 0 0 0
## 4 -0.80 1 0 0 1
## 5 -1.41 1 0 0 1
## 6 -1.07 0 0 0 0
## (3) convert to data frame so we can use $ notation in next step
mm <- as_tibble(mm)
## (4) new data frame of means where only lowinc changes
new_df <- tibble(byses1 = mean(mm$byses1),
female = mean(mm$female),
moth_ba = mean(mm$moth_ba),
fath_ba = mean(mm$fath_ba),
lowinc = c(0,1))
## see new data
new_df
## # A tibble: 2 × 5
## byses1 female moth_ba fath_ba lowinc
## <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>
## 1 0.0421 0.503 0.274 0.320 0
## 2 0.0421 0.503 0.274 0.320 1
Notice how the new data frame has the same terms that were used in the
original model, but has only two rows. In the lowinc column, the
values switch from 0 to 1. All the other rows are averages of the
data used to fit the model. This of course makes for a somewhat
nonsensical average (what does it mean that a single father to have
.32 of a BA/BS?), but that’s okay. Again, what we want right now are
two students who represent the “average” student except one is low
income and the other is not.
To generate the prediction, we use the same function call as before,
but use our new_df object with the newdata argument.
## predict margins
predict(fit, newdata = new_df, se.fit = TRUE)
## $fit
## 1 2
## 45.82426 43.68173
##
## $se.fit
## 1 2
## 0.1166453 0.2535000
##
## $df
## [1] 15230
##
## $residual.scale
## [1] 12.24278
Our results show that compared to otherwise similar students, those with a family income less than $25,000 a year are predicted to score about two points lower on their math test. To be clear, this is not a casual estimate, but rather associational. This means we would be wrong to say that having a lower family income causes lower math test scores (which doesn’t jibe with our domain knowledge either; low income is almost certainly a proxy for other omitted variables — access to educational resources for just one thing — that are much more directly linked to test scores).
I also want to note that we held the other covariates at their
means. We could have instead chosen other values (e.g. fath_ba ==
1 or female == 1), which would have given us different marginal
associations. Dropping or including other covariates likely would
change our results, as well. The takeaway is that is that margins you
compute are a function of your model as well as (obviously) the margin
you investigate.