Modeling Nonlinearity and Interaction in Regression Analysis Using Spline Variables (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences)

"Spline variables and their interactions play a crucial role in the field of social science. This book offers a comprehensive and detailed exploration of this method, providing valuable insights and information for researchers in the field."
--Man-Kit Lei, The University of Georgia

This volume addresses the issue of linear constraints in regression modeling. Author Roger A. Wojtkiewicz uses the method of knotted spline variables (also known as piecewise linear regression) and a new method involving group spline variables to model nonlinearity in a variety of situations. Using spline variables to model nonlinearity allows researchers to specify unrestricted models for models that involve interval variables, allowing for greater flexibility in modeling any possible interaction.

Roger A. Wojtkiewicz is a professor in the Department of Sociology at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. He spent the first 12 years of his career in the Department of Sociology at Louisiana State University and has since been at Ball State where he served as department chairperson for 12 years. At LSU, he taught undergraduate statistics and a graduate course in regression modeling in the PhD program. At Ball State, he has taught both the first and second semester courses in the statistics sequence in the master’s program. He was trained as a quantitative methodologist in the graduate sociology program at the University of Wisconsin―Madison. He is author of Elementary Regression Modeling: A Discrete Approach published by Sage Publications in 2017.