Advances in Multilevel Modeling

>> Multilevel modeling has become increasingly popular among educational practitioners and researchers as a way to account for nested sampling designs that often accompany data collection in classroom, schools, and districts. Recognition of nested data structures, like students nested within classrooms, however, is challenged by the practical realities of the environments in which we gather data, of the instability in the attributes being measured, and of the vagaries of the learners themselves.

>> While the basic multilevel model has been successfully implemented by educational researchers for some time now, and even more modern extensions have emerged in recent years, methodological progress must be sustained in order to keep up with the myriad of complex data analytic conditions often found in practice (such as attrition, changing cluster membership, partial clustering, lack of measurement invariance across clusters).

>> To that end, the objective of this conference is to bring together prominent quantitative researchers whose current research agenda advances state-of-the-art multilevel methodology focused on addressing current dilemmas in modeling; to create an event that appeals in scope and accessibility to applied and academic researchers throughout the many disciplines within education, as well as across the social and behavioral sciences; and to impact the practice of multilevel modeling methods within and beyond education, allowing researchers to answer existing questions more thoroughly as well as to pose and answer new questions.