Researchers Wanted to Investigate How the Type of Town or City

Essay

Researchers wanted to investigate how the type of town or city in which people lived (e.g., rural area, large town, suburb, metropolis), the type of residence (i.e., single-family homes or apartment complexes), number of children, attitudes about civic engagement, and religiosity (i.e., how involved people are with their religion), predicted people's voting behavior. You recommended they use multilevel modeling to test the relationships among these variables - (a) explain why and how this was the right or wrong choice. What considerations should go into deciding what nonexperimental design to use? (b) Regardless of whether it was the correct or incorrect choice, outline how these variables would be organized in a hierarchical linear model, and explain why data would be organized in this way. After data were collected, the researchers changed their mind and analyzed this model using multiple regression. (c) Explain what sort of information would be lost, or why it would be inappropriate, to use multiple regression in this example.