What Kind of Research Question Can I Address with Multilevel Modelling?

How much of the variability in attainment is attributable to differences between schools and how much to differences between students within schools?

That is to what extent does the school attended influence the students’ attainment?

Can we find factors at the student and school levels (for example gender, ethnicity, school size, school type) which account for the variability at either level?

Multilevel modelling allows us to determine the relative impact of each level of the hierarchy on the response and to identify the factors at each level that are associated with that level’s impact.

For example, do low ability children fare better when educated alongside children of the same ability or children of higher ability? How would you begin to answer this question?

Although the above points relate to an educational example, multilevel modelling is a general technique and can address similar types of question for hierarchical structures from other disciplines.

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