Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models

Fit many models

Think of a series of models, starting with the too-simple and continuing through to the hopelessly messy. Generally it's a good idea to start simple. Or start complex if you'd like, but prepare to quickly drop things out and move to the simpler model to help understand what's going on. Working with simple models is not a research goal—in the problems we work on, we usually find complicated models more believable—but rather a technique to help understand the fitting process.

A corollary of this principle is the need to be able to fit models relatively quickly. Realistically, you don't know what model you want to be fitting, so it's rarely a good idea to run the computer overnight fitting a single model. At least, wait until you've developed some understanding by fitting many models.

Do a little work to make your computations faster and more reliable

This sounds like computational advice but is really about statistics: if you can fit models faster, you can fit more models and better understand both data and model. But getting the model to run faster often has some startup cost, either in data preparation or in model complexity.

Data subsetting

Related to the “multiple model” approach are simple approximations that speed the computations. Computers are getting faster and faster—but models are getting more and more complicated! And so these general tricks might remain important.