Advanced methodology and statistics seminar (AMASS)

Introduction to multilevel modeling

Instructor: Meghan Cain, Assistant Director, Educational Services

Date: Thursday, 20 November 2025

Time: 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Fee: $31 to $145

Nested data are ubiquitous in clinical psychology research. Nesting occurs when there are natural groupings in the data, such as when students are nested in classrooms or patients are nested in doctors, and with longitudinal data. If not properly modeled, such data structures create statistical dependencies that can lead to inflated type 1 error rates. Multilevel models are one solution. Multilevel models not only provide valid inference from nested data but also allow researchers to ask more complex questions about their data.

In this workshop, I will offer a conceptual and technical introduction to multilevel modeling. In particular, we will focus on how to formulate models, interpret coefficients, perform model building, and perform model comparison. We will also spend significant time disaggregating effects between versus within clusters. For example, you may have some variables collected at the student level that explain both student-level differences and average school-level differences. By disaggregating effects, effective interventions can be designed at the appropriate level, i.e., the student or school level. [Read more ...]

Meghan Cain

Assistant Director, Educational Services

Meghan Cain is the Assistant Director of Educational Services at StataCorp LLC. She earned her PhD in quantitative psychology from the University of Notre Dame, where her research focused on structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling, and Bayesian statistics. At Stata, she oversees the development of statistical trainings and webinars, creates videos for the Stata YouTube channel, and reviews Stata Press books.