LEMMA 1 research projects
Methodological and substantive research was conducted on the following themes:
- Growth trajectory or mixture models
- Mental health and psychosocial development
- Modelling school effects
- Voting choice
Growth trajectory or mixture models
The usual distributional assumption of normality for higher level random effects is over-restrictive. Nagin (1999: Psychological Methods, 4: 139-177) describes a formulation for growth curves where a discrete set of latent groups is posited and each individual has a membership distribution across the groups. Separate growth trajectories are modelled for each group.
Group-based latent trajectory models were used in the analysis of voting trends at the constituency level between 1950 and 2001. The same methodology was also used to model trends in global life expectancy and peri-natal maternal depression. Outputs include Jen et al. (2009a; 2009b; 2010) and Johnston et al. (2007; 2009).
Publications
- Jen M.H., Johnston R.J., Jones K., Harris R. and Gandy A. (2010) International variations in life expectancy: a spatio-temporal analysis. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 101, 73-90.
- Jen M.H., Jones K. and Johnston R.J. (2009a) Compositional and contextual approaches to the study of health behavior and outcomes: using multi-level modelling to evaluate Wilkinson's income inequality hypothesis. Health and Place, 15, 198-203.
- Jen M.H., Jones K. and Johnston R.J. (2009b) Global variations in health: evaluating Wilkinson’s income inequality hypothesis using the World Values Survey. Social Science in Medicine, 68, 643-653.
- Johnston R.J., Jones K. and Jen M.H. (2009) Regional variations in voting at British general elections, 1950-2001: group-based latent trajectory analysis. Environment and Planning A, 41, 598-616.
- Johnston R.J., Jones K., Propper C. and Burgess S.M. (2007) Region, local context, and voting at the 1997 general election in England. American Journal of Political Science, 51, 641-655.
Mental health and psychosocial development
This project was concerned with the development and application of models to child development and family relationship data, accounting for complex family structures and processes. The work included extension of the social relations model to include genetic effects, and was in tandem with an ESRC Research Methods project ( Methodologies for Studying Families and Family Effects). Another project examined the impact of family disruption on children’s educational careers, using a simultaneous equations model to allow for selection effects. Outputs include Jenkins et al. (2005a), Jenkins et al. (2005b), O’Connor et al. (2006), Rasbash et al. (in press), Steele et al. (2009), and Propper et al. (2005).
Publications
- Jenkins J.M., Dunn J., O'Connor T.G., Rasbash J. and Behnke P. (2005a) Change in maternal perception of sibling negativity: within- and between-family influences. Journal of Family Psychology, 19, 533-541.
- Jenkins J.M., Simpson A., J. D., Rasbash J. and O'Connor T. (2005b) The mutual influence of marital conflict and children's behavior problems: shared and non-shared family risks. Child Development, 76, 24-39.
- O'Connor T., Dunn J.M., Jenkins J.M. and Rasbash J. (2006) Predictors of between-family and within-family variation in parent-child relationships. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 498-510.
- Propper C., Jones K., Bolster A.A., Burgess S.M., Johnston R.J. and Sarker R. (2005) Local neighbourhood and mental health: evidence from the UK. Social Science and Medicine, 61, 2065-2083.
- Rasbash J., Jenkins J., O'Connor T., Reiss D. and Tackett J. (in press) A social relations model of family negativity and positivity using a genetically-informative sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Steele F., Sigle-Rushton W. and Kravdal Ø. (2009) Consequences of family disruption on children's educational outcomes in Norway. Demography, 46, 553-574.
Modelling school effects
Projects include: a study of pupil progress over time, disentangling pupil, school and neighbourhood effects; an examination of pupil residency, location and the related issues of school mobility and selection; a sensitivity analysis of the impact of missing data on estimates of school effects; and a study of the impact of school resources on pupil attainment. Outputs include Leckie (2009), Goldstein et al. (2007), Peng et al. (2006), Steele et al. (2007), Thomas et al. (2007) and Leckie’s PhD thesis. Related work on the statistical limitations of the government’s school league tables (Leckie and Goldstein, 2009a, b) also appeared in the RSS magazine Significance (Goldstein and Leckie, 2008) are received considerable media coverage: BBC Radio 4, FT, Telegraph and TES. This work was also disseminated to education policy makers at the ESRC-funded PLASC/NPD Users' Group (PLUG).
Publications
- Goldstein H., Burgess S.M. and McConnell B. (2007) Modelling the impact of pupil mobility on school differences in educational achievement. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, 170, 941-954.
- Goldstein H. and Leckie G.B. (2008) School league tables: What can they really tell us? Significance, 5, 62-64.
- Leckie G.B. (2009) The complexity of school and neighbourhood effects and movements of pupils on school differences in models of educational achievement. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A 172, 537-554.
- Leckie G.B. and Goldstein H. (2009a) The limitations of using school league tables to inform school choice. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, 172, 835-851.
- Leckie G.B. and Goldstein H. (2009b) School league tables: are they any good for choosing schools? Research in Public Policy, Bulletin of the Centre for Market and Public Organisation, 8, 6-9.
- Peng W.-J., Thomas S.M., Yang X. and Li J. (2006) Developing school evaluation methods to improve the quality of schooling in China: a pilot 'value added' study. Assessment in Education, 13, 135-154.
- Steele F., Vignoles A. and Jenkins A. (2007) The effect of school resources on pupil attainment: a multilevel simultaneous equation modelling approach. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, 170, 801-824.
- Thomas S.M., Peng W.-J. and Gray J. (2007) Value added trends in English secondary school performance over ten years. Oxford Review of Education, 33, 261-298.
Voting choice
This project considered the individual, household and neighbourhood determinants of voting abstention and party choice. The British Household Panel Study provides repeated binary measures on voting intention for individuals within households within areas at a variety of scales. Normally distributed individual level random effects are unrealistic as part of the mover/stayer problem, as are normally distributed household effects. Outputs include Johnston et al. (2007; 2009).
Publications
- Johnston R.J., Jones K. and Jen M.H. (2009) Regional variations in voting at British general elections, 1950-2001: group-based latent trajectory analysis. Environment and Planning A, 41, 598-616.
- Johnston R.J., Jones K., Propper C. and Burgess S.M. (2007) Region, local context, and voting at the 1997 general election in England. American Journal of Political Science, 51, 641-655.