Some Basic lmer Questions

Hi Kevin,

welcome to the wonderful world of mixed-models!  I heartily recommend
that you read the following books: Gelman and Hill, and Pinehiro and
Bates.

For linear mixed models I would also suggest Verbeke and Molenberghs  
"Linear Mixed Models for Longitudinal Data"

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 03:21:20PM -0500, Kevin E. Thorpe wrote:

Finally, (and feel free to point me at suitable references)
how does one determine the appropriate correlation structure
to use in these models?

While you can make life more complicated AIC is a reasonable method.  
This is criticised as it is not the same as statistical significance  
but all we need is a reasonable model for the correlation so that  
inferences about the other parameters are correct.

Ken