# Interpreting $R^2$, F-statistic & p-value of a model

From p. 277 of R Cookbook:

Let's say I have a R model lm(formula = y ~ u + v + w) and the Summary() shows:

Multiple R-Squared: 0.4981, Adjust R-Squared: 0.4402 F-statistic:
8.603 on 3 and 26 DF, p-value: 0.0003915


Using Adjusted r-Squared I can say that my model explains 44.02% of the variance of y with the remaining 55.98 unexplained.

Question: Does the associated F-statistic (with the p-value being < .05) tell me:

1. the model, in general, is significant (not taking into account other values from Summary)
2. the model is significant in explaining the 44.02% variance (adjusted r-squared)
• How did you arrive at 3, and 26 d.f.? – Subhash C. Davar Dec 3 '17 at 12:43

The F-statistics tells you if the model fits the data better than the mean. Or, in other words, if $H_0:\;R^2=0$ should be rejected.

See: Wikipedia

To illustrate that the formula given in the link is indeed used by summary.lm:

x1 <- 1:10
set.seed(42)
x2 <- rnorm(10)
y <- x1+2*x2+rnorm(10)

fit0 <- lm(y~1)
fit1 <- lm(y~x1+x2)

summary(fit1)
#F-statistic:  14.1 on 2 and 7 DF,  p-value: 0.003507