Testing the necessity of multilevel

modeling
Conf. univ. dr. Adrian Hatos

Topics: measuring inter-class coefficient using SPSS

Introduction

One of the assumptions of OLS is the independence of observations. The nesting of the data
produces a violation of the assumption as observations from the same group tend to be more similar
due to the commonality of contexts. How strong is this similarity and whether multilevel regression is
required can be assessed calculating the unconditional interclass correlation coefficient.

This may be done fairly simply in SPSS.

Problem

We have good reason to assume that a large amount of variability of acceptance and opposition to
Eu enlargement is between country variability. Computing the relative amount of between group
variability, compared to between individuals variability (ie the ICC) is explained below.

In either way, computing the ICC requires doing an unconditional Means Model also called
unrestricted model.

Solution using SPSS

For this, you use Mixed models from the menu Analyze
Define the grouping variable by placing its name in the Subjects window. Click Continue.
 Define attitude about the speed of Eu integration (euflf) as the Dependent variable. Click
Random

Check Include Intercept at the Random effects box.

Introduce the grouping variable (euflf) in the Combinations box at the bottom.
Click Continue.
You can compute the ICC using the data from the following table from the output and applying the
formula of r below.
In this case: ICC(r)=0,7026/(0,7026+7.185)=0.089

This means that 8,09% of the total variability of the dependent variable can be attributed to between
groups variability. That is pretty much!