Dear John,

Without investigating your data and models in detail, it's not surprising that the p-values for the two coefficients differ: the models have different residual standard errors (and hence different coefficient standard errors) and different residual degrees of freedom (and hence are based on different t-distributions).

I hope this helps,
 John
--
John Fox, Professor Emeritus
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
web: https://www.john-fox.ca/
--
On 2025-06-29 11:05 p.m., Sorkin, John wrote:
Caution: External email.


The question that follows in NOT an R question, but rather a statistics 
question. I hope you will forgive my statistics question.

I am investigating interrupted time-series analysis. My data has two periods, 
period 0 and period 1. In period 0 the slope is positive. In period 2 the slope 
is negative:

mydata<- structure(list(period = c(0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
                                    0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 
1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1),
                         time2 = c(1L, 2L, 3L, 4L, 5L, 6L, 7L, 8L, 9L, 10L, 
11L, 12L,
                                   13L, 14L, 15L, 16L, 1L, 2L, 3L, 4L, 5L, 6L, 
7L, 8L, 9L, 10L,
                                   11L, 12L, 13L, 14L, 15L, 16L), time = 1:32,
                         y = c(0.0190981041979942,
                               -0.648843854645016, 2.62941433593151, 
2.97383527060948, 2.68476280937483,
                               2.51909810419799, 1.85115614535498, 
5.12941433593151, 5.47383527060948,
                               5.18476280937483, 5.01909810419799, 
4.35115614535498, 7.62941433593151,
                               7.97383527060948, 7.68476280937483, 
7.51909810419799, 6.35115614535498,
                               8.12941433593151, 6.97383527060948, 
5.18476280937483, 3.51909810419799,
                               1.35115614535498, 3.12941433593151, 
1.97383527060948, 0.184762809374828,
                               -1.48090189580201, -3.64884385464502, 
-1.87058566406849,
                               -3.02616472939052, -4.81523719062517, 
-6.48090189580201,
                               -8.64884385464502)), row.names = c(NA, -32L), class = 
"data.frame")
mydata
plot(mydata$time,mydata$y)
title("Data Used in my analyses")

# Regression of y on time, period 0 (16-data points)
fit0 <- lm(y~time,data=mydata[1:16,])
summary(fit0) #(16-data points)
abline(fit0,col="green")
cat("Regression period 0:", 
"beta=",summary(fit0)$coefficients["time","Estimate"],"p-value=",summary(fit0)$coefficients["time","Pr(>|t|)"],"\n")

# Regression of y on time, period 1 (16-data points)
fit1 <- lm(y~time,data=mydata[17:32,]) #(16-data points)
abline(fit1,col="red")
summary(fit1)
cat("Regression period 1:", 
"beta=",summary(fit1)$coefficients["time","Estimate"],"p-value=",summary(fit1)$coefficients["time","Pr(>|t|)"],"\n")

# Regression of y on time, period 0 and 1 (32-data points)
fit2 <- lm(y~time+period+time*period,data=mydata[1:32,])
summary(fit2) #(32-data points)
cat("Regression period 1 and 2 using interaction:", 
"beta=",summary(fit2)$coefficients["time","Estimate"],"p-value=",summary(fit2)$coefficients["time","Pr(>|t|)"],"\n")


Please note that the regression of y on time in period 0 (fit 0) returns
time slope=0.52358 p=2.86e-07

Please note that the regression of y on time in period 0 (fit 2) and 1 returns
time slope=0.52358 p=1.50e-09

The time slope are the same in the two models, fit0 and fit2, however the 
p-values are different, 2.86e-07 (fit 0) vs. 1.50e-09 (fit 2) a two-orders of 
magnitude improvement in the p-value!
I am not surprised that the time slopes are the same.  I am shocked that the 
p-values are different. While fit 0 used 16 lines of data, and fit 2 used 32 
lines of data, the number of values that were used to compute the time slopes 
in period 0 by the two models are the same, 16. This being the case, why are 
the p-values of the time slopes different in fit0 vs. fit2?

Thank you,
John

P.S. This question is NOT homework. I am many years beyond being a student (at 
least a student in a class), but I am a teacher of a class (and a life-long 
student). The question comes from a discussion I had with a student in one of 
my classes.





John David Sorkin M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine;
Associate Director for Biostatistics and Informatics, Baltimore VA Medical 
Center Geriatrics Research, Education, and Clinical Center;
PI Biostatistics and Informatics Core, University of Maryland School of 
Medicine Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center;
Senior Statistician University of Maryland Center for Vascular Research;

Division of Gerontology and Paliative Care,
10 North Greene Street
GRECC (BT/18/GR)
Baltimore, MD 21201-1524
Cell phone 443-418-5382



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