# Estimating correlation between random slopes and random intercepts using the lme4 package in R

For answering my research question I am interested in the correlation between the random slopes and random intercepts in a multilevel model, estimated using the R library lme4.

The data I have is: Y (test-scores from students), SES (socio-economic status for each student) and schoolid (ID for each school).

I am using the following syntax to estimate random intercepts and slopes for the schools:

library(lme4)
model3 <- lmer(Y ~ SES + (1 + SES | schoolid))


The reference I used for this syntax is this pdf:

On page 19, a similar analysis is described. It is said that by defining the random intercepts and slopes toghether, it is indirectly specified that we want the random intercepts and slopes to covary. Therefore, also the correlation between random slopes and random intercepts is estimated. Basically, exactly what I need for answering my research hyptohesis.

However, when I look at the results:

 summary(model3)


I am getting the following output:

Linear mixed model fit by REML ['lmerMod']
Formula: Y ~ SES + (1 + SES | schoolid)

REML criterion at convergence: 8256.4

Scaled residuals:
Min      1Q  Median      3Q     Max
-3.1054 -0.6633 -0.0028  0.6810  3.5606

Random effects:
Groups   Name        Variance  Std.Dev. Corr
schoolid (Intercept) 0.6427924 0.80174
SES             0.0009143 0.03024  1.00
Residual             0.3290902 0.57366
Number of obs: 4376, groups: schoolid, 179

Fixed effects:
Estimate Std. Error t value
(Intercept) -0.036532   0.060582  -0.603
SES          0.062491   0.009984   6.259

Correlation of Fixed Effects:
(Intr)
SES 0.226


As stated in the output, the correlation between the random slopes and random intercepts equals 1.00. I find this hard to believe. When I call in R:

VarCorr(model3)\$schoolid


I am getting the following output which gives the correlations and covariance matrix:

                (Intercept)          SES
(Intercept)  0.64279243 0.0242429680
SES          0.02424297 0.0009143255

attr(,"stddev")
(Intercept)         SES
0.80174337  0.03023782

attr(,"correlation")
(Intercept) SES
(Intercept)           1   1
SES                   1   1


It seems as if the correlation between the slopes and intercepts was set to 1.00 by R. I did not see this in the output of anyone else when I was searching the internet on references on multilevel modelling.

Does anybody know what can be the cause of this correlation? Can it be that the correlation is set to 1.00 because otherwise the model would not be identified? Or is it because the variance of the random slopes is so small (0.0009) that the correlation can not be estimated?

I have tried to simulate data in order provide the code for a small reproducible dataset. I was however not yet able to reproduce this output by means of simulated data. As far as I have the code I will eidt my post and add the code.

Edit: In response to a comment by Roman Luštrik, the following plot:

ggplot(data[1:261,], aes(x = SES, y = Y)) + geom_point() + facet_wrap(~ schoolid) +
geom_smooth(method=lm)


As there are in total 179 schools the plot becomes quite chaotic, therefore I included the first 10 schools only to make it readable:

• Good question, but I think this falls into the domain of crossvalidated.com or r-sig-mixed-models mailing list. I'd be interested in a figure of this data, if circumstances allow it. – Roman Luštrik Jul 16 '14 at 12:05
• Thanks for your remark. I am afraid that it is not allowed to post a question here and also on crossvalidated.com, so I will try on the r-sig-mixed models mailing list. What kind of figure would you be interested in? – Inga Jul 16 '14 at 12:25
• Thanks a lot! I already posted my question to the mailing list but haven't got an answer so far. I added the plot with regression lines (consisting of a subsample of 10 out of 179 schools). – Inga Jul 16 '14 at 13:51
• I have received an answer from Ben Bolker on the r-sig-mixed-models mailing list. For everyone who is interested: It seems that there is not enough information in the data to estimate this specific model. See glmm.wikidot.com/faq#singular_fits for more information or subscribe to the mailing list to see Ben's full answer. To solve this, I used a slightly adjusted version of the JAGS syntax as provided by this website: people.ucsc.edu/~abrsvn/general_correlated_ranefs_bayes_jags.r. Estimated using MCMC the correlation between random intercepts and random slopes is 0.6. – Inga Jul 17 '14 at 8:50
• Here is Ben's answer for (the) posterior. stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-sig-mixed-models/2014q3/022351.html – Roman Luštrik Jul 17 '14 at 9:20