On Multilevel Modeling in Writing Research: An Example

In this chapter we highlight the choices that can be made during the analysis of data from a writing intervention. By means of a reanalysis of existing data we who that the use of multilevel models is a necessity in order to take dependencies in the data into account. The results show clearly that in order to reach generalizable conclusions students have to write more texts. We have tried to make different steps in the analysis explicit by relating each step to a specific statistical model, and highlight the effect of each step. This way of analysis (thinking) can be applied to all kind of experiments: Experiments with less or with more measurement occasions, or experiments with more conditions.