[R-meta] Metafor and Robust() for hierarchical models

Hi C?tia,

This is a good question. Robust variance estimation protects against
mis-specified assumptions regarding the sampling variances and covariances
of effect size estimates, as well as mis-specification of the random
effects structure of the model. Therefore, whether you to use it or not
depends on how much you trust the modeling assumptions that you're making.

In the Konstantopoulos example, each sample provides one independent effect
size estimate, so there is not much reason to be concerned about
mis-specifiation of sampling variances or covariances of effect size
estimates. The random effects structure also seems pretty reasonable
(insofar as it captures the hierarchical structure of the data), so there
is not a particular reason to be concerned about mis-specification of that
aspect of the model. Therefore, RVE does not seem necessary here. You might
still prefer to use it if you are especially cautious or skeptical of
multi-level modeling assumptions in general, but I think there is a very
reasonable argument that it isn't necessary.

James

On Wed, May 26, 2021 at 10:19 AM C?tia Ferreira De Oliveira <

Hello,

I have been going through some of the metafor resources and I was wondering
if it would still be recommended to run the robust() from clubSandwich when
having a dataset similar to this the one by Konstantopoulos or whether the
approaches presented here

https://www.rdocumentation.org/packages/metafor/versions/2.4-0/topics/dat.konstantopoulos2011
are enough.

Best wishes,

Catia

        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]

_______________________________________________
R-sig-meta-analysis mailing list
R-sig-meta-analysis at r-project.org
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-meta-analysis