A comparative study of estimators in multilevel linear models

PLoS One. 2021 Nov 18;16(11):e0259960. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0259960. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Multilevel Models are widely used in organizational research, educational research, epidemiology, psychology, biology and medical fields. In this paper, we recommend the situations where Bootstrap procedures through Minimum Norm Quadratic Unbiased Estimator (MINQUE) can be extremely handy than that of Restricted Maximum Likelihood (REML) in multilevel level linear regression models. In our simulation study the bootstrap by means of MINQUE is superior to REML in conditions where normality does not hold. Moreover, the real data application also supports our findings in terms of accuracy of estimates and their standard errors.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study

MeSH terms

  • Humans
  • Likelihood Functions
  • Models, Statistical*
  • Multilevel Analysis
  • Regression Analysis

Grants and funding

The authors received no specific funding for this work.