Dear all

There are three news items today:
1) Bookings are now open for our Multilevel Modelling of Discrete Response
Data workshop
2) *School league tables: what can they really tell us?* and
3) Learn about *Covariance and Correlation Matrices* - slide/voice-over
presentation

1) Bookings are now open for our Multilevel Modelling of Discrete Response
Data workshop to take place in January 2009.
Prices:
students: £85**
academic staff: £145**
non-academic: £550**
**This price applies to all nationalities and includes a set of manuals (one
user and one MCMC) lunch and refreshments every day, plus one evening meal
at a local restaurant.

This intermediate level workshop provides an introduction to multilevel
modelling of discrete (categorical and count) data. We assume that
participants are familiar with multilevel models for continuous response
variables (to the level implied by our Introduction to Multilevel Modelling
workshop or Module 5 of our online multilevel modelling course) and standard
(single-level) models for binary responses. Topics covered include:

    * Multilevel models for binary response data
    * Estimation procedures and software (with an emphasis on MCMC
estimation in MLwiN)
    * Models for proportions
    * Multilevel multinomial logit regression for nominal responses
    * Multilevel proportional odds models for ordinal responses
    * Multilevel Poisson regression for count data

For further details go to our workshop page:

<http://www.cmm.bristol.ac.uk/MLwiN/tech-support/workshops/index.shtml>

2) *School league tables: what can they really tell us?*

New research findings by Professor Harvey Goldstein and George Leckie, based
in the Centre for Multilevel Modelling, were broadcast on this Monday's
edition of BBC Radio 4's Learning Curve.

Harvey Goldstein spoke to presenter Libby Purves about how recent research,
taking the GCSE marks of students in England and comparing the 'value added'
scores with simple GCSE averages, has concluded league tables were not fit
for that purpose. Harvey highlighted it was time that their publication
should cease:

The research has demonstrated that for purposes of school choice, a
government priority, these tables convey almost no useful information since
they are essentially concerned with predicted future performance and that
turns out to be extremely imprecise. The study used the government's
National Pupil Database to carry out the analyses.

The results of the study are especially relevant at the moment since a
number of voices have been raised in opposition to league table publication
and targets on the grounds that these introduce great stress, distort
learning and undermine good teaching.

Harvey and George hope their work will influence educational policy and
practice and provide sound statistical evidence to influence the government,
which has often said that its policies are driven by evidence. This will be
a good test of that claim.

To listen to the interview, download the full research findings, visit:

http://www.cmm.bristol.ac.uk/learning-training/audio.shtml

3) *Covariance and Correlation Matrices*

We have just published another in our popular series of slide presentations
with voice-overs: Covariance and Correlation Matrices.

<http://www.cmm.bristol.ac.uk/learning-training/videos/index.shtml#correlation>

We use multilevel modelling when we have dependent data, i.e. there is
similarity between observations from the same group (for example, heights of
children from the same family). An obvious question is: just how does the
multilevel model take this dependency into account? In this presentation, we
examine the structure of the model: we see what the correlation is between
each pair of level 1 units in our dataset. This allows us to see how the
relation between different observations from the same group is specified by
the model. We contrast this to a single level model, for which we see there
is no correlation between different observations from the same group.

We have also provided a full written transcript of the Covariance and
Correlation matrices presentation (with some slides):

<http://www.cmm.bristol.ac.uk/learning-training/videos/RP/Correlation.shtml>

See our video presentations page for more details about this and other
audio-visual presentations from the Centre for Multilevel Modelling.

<http://www.cmm.bristol.ac.uk/learning-training/videos/index.shtml>

Best wishes

Hilary Browne
-------------------------------
Centre for Multilevel Modelling
University of Bristol
2 Priory Road
Bristol BS8 1TX
UK

Tel: +44 (0)117 331 0804
FAX: +44 (0)117 331 0833
email: [log in to unmask]
web: <http://www.cmm.bristol.ac.uk>