Interpretation of Regression Analysis Output

1.Regression Analysis Output : Summary Output

This part of the analysis tells us how well the calculated linear regression fits our source data.

Variables:
The table in the Excel spreadsheet contains a random sample of 25 cases that determine the
mother’s weight in kilograms and the infant’s birth weight in grams. There are two variables in
the table. The first one is the mother’s weight (kg) denoted by the letter X. It is the independent
variable of the equation. The second variable is the infant’s weight (g) denoted by the letter Y. It
is the dependent variable of the equation.

Observations:
It is the number of observations in the model. In this case, the number of observations of our
model is 25.

Correlation Coefficient, r :
The correlation coefficient, r describes the strength of the relationship between two sets of
variables. It can assume any value from -1.00 (strong negative correlation) to +1.00 (strong
positive correlation. The value of ( r )in our case is found to be around 0.521 which suggests a
moderate positive correlation between the two variables being studied. It indicates that as one
variable increases, the other variable tends to increase as well, but the relationship is not very
strong because the closer the value of r is to 1, the stronger the positive correlation would be.

Coefficient of Determination, r^2 :

The coefficient of determination is the correlation coefficient squared. Therefore, it is also
known as R-square. It is used as an indicator of the goodness of fit and shows how many points
fall on the regression line. The correlation coefficient for the relationship between the mother’s
weight (kg) and the infant’s weight (g) is around 0.521. Therefore, we can say that 27.1% of the
variability in the number of infants’ weight (g) is predictable from the mother’s weight, great,
but not too bad either.
Adjusted R Square
The R square will tell us what percent of the infant’s weight variability is explained by the
regression. It is the R square that is adjusted for the number of independent variables (mother’s
weight/X) in our model which is around 0.271. We want to use this value instead of R square for
multiple linear regression analysis.

Standard Error of Estimate

The standard error of the estimate is another goodness-of-fit measure that shows the precision of
a regression analysis. The smaller the value, the more certain we can be about a regression
equation. It is an absolute measure that shows the average distance that the data points fall from
the regression line. The standard error in our case is around 404.83 which indicates that the data
are not close to the regression line and that the regression equation can be used to predict
Y(infants’ weight) with a huge error.

2. Regression Analysis Output: ANOVA

This part of the output splits the sum of squares into individual components that give information
about the levels of variability within the regression model.

SS
It is the sum of squares. The lower the Residual SS is compared with the total SS, the better our
model fits the data. As we can tell from the output of our data, the residual SS is only around
3769489.082 whilst the total SS is 5175668. Therefore, the model does not fit the data really
well.

Significance F and P-values

F is the F statistic or F-test for the null hypothesis. It is used to test the overall significance of the
model. Significance F is the P-value of F.
The significance F value gives us an idea of how reliable our results are. If the value of
significance F is less than 0.05, the model is alright. As the significance F for our model is
0.0075, we can conclude that our model is alright.
3. Regression Analysis Output: Coefficients
The section of the analysis provides distinct information about the components of our analysis.

Linear Regression Equation

y=ax + b
Y= Mothers weight Coefficient * x + Intercept
Plugging in the values of a and b, we get:
Y= 30.79426655x + 1501.304162
Mother’s weight coefficient is b which represents the slope of the graph. This implies that an
increase of 1 degree in the mother’s weight will result in an increase of 30.79426655 infants’
weight.

The intercept (a) means that if there is no mother’s weight recorded, the estimated value of Y
will be 1501.304162

4. Regression Analysis Output: Residuals

The residuals are simply the difference between the infant’s actual weight and predicted weight.
If we compare the estimated and the actual number of infants’ weight , it can be seen that the
results will vary slightly:

For X=52.2
Estimated Y=30.79426655 x 52.2 +1501.304162=3108.765
Actual Y =3374 (Row and Observation 14)
Therefore,
Residual= Actual – Estimated
= 3374 – 3108.765 = 265.235
This shows us that independent variables are never perfect predictors of the dependent variables.
Residuals, hence, help us understand how far away the actual values are from the predicted
values.