Phylogenetic Multilevel Models with brms - providing correct SE values

[AgaSz22]

Hi all,

I am conducting a Bayesian meta-analysis following the tutorial “Estimating Phylogenetic Multilevel Models with brms”. It’s very helpful, but I got slightly confused at this step:

It’s said that brms requires SD as input, but in the code, the abbreviation is SE, which I assume would be standard error? I also came across this equation in the “Effect size, confidence interval and statistical significance: a practical guide for biologists” paper by Nakagawa and Cuthill (2007), which is slightly different from the one in the tutorial:

I would appreciate suggestions on which equation to use. Thanks!

[jsocolar]

Hi and welcome to the Stan discourse!

@AgaSz22

It’s said that brms requires SD as input, but in the code, the abbreviation is SE, which I assume would be standard error?

It is the standard error, which itself is a standard deviation of sorts. In particular standard error (SE) is the standard deviation of a sampling distribution, which measures how precisely a sample mean estimates a population mean.

@AgaSz22

which is slightly different from the one in the tutorial

These expressions are equivalent.

[AgaSz22]

Thanks!