Statistical modelling

In this example the deviance statistic can be used to determine whether the model that specifies the separate variance components fits the data better than the fixed model that contains only the residual variance component.

The deviance in this output, namely 1817.10, is lower than the model without random effects (namely 1855.50 seen by rerunning this model). The difference between the two values: 1855.80 - 1817.10 = 38.70 with 688 − 686 = 2 degrees of freedom. This approximates to a Chi-square distribution (Chi-square (df = 2) = 38.70).

This is significant (P<0.001) and shows that the mixed model provides a better fit than the fixed effects model without the ram and ewe variance components.

 
**Estimated Variance Components **
Random term Component S.e.
RAM_ID 0.067 0.089
EWE_ID 1.457 0.283

*** Residual variance model ***

Parameter

Estimate

S.e.

Sigma2

3.427

0.266


**Approximate stratum variances *** 
   

Effective d.f.

RAM_ID

4.733

57.66

EWE_ID

6.490

297.74

*units*

3.427

332.60


* Matrix of coefficients of components for each stratum
RAM_ID

10.31

0.42

1.00

EWE_ID

0.00

2.10

1.00

*units*

0.00

0.00

1.00


*** Deviance: -2*Log-Likelihood ***
Deviance d.f.
1817.10 685

*** Wald tests for fixed effects ***
Fixed term Wald statistic

d.f.

Wald/d.f.

Chi-sq prob

* Sequentially adding terms to fixed model
YEAR

230.32

5

46.06

<0.001

SEX

9.66

1

9.66

0.002

AGEWEAN

63.84

1

63.84

<0.001

DL

30.44

1

30.44

<0.001

DQ

78.41

1

78.41

<0.001

RAM_BRD

6.64

1

6.64

0.010

EWE_BRD

2.91

1

2.91

0.088

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