In psychology, we increasingly encounter data that is nested. It is to the point now where any quantitative psychologist worth their salt must know how to analyze multilevel data. A common approach to multilevel modeling is the varying effects approach, where the relation between a predictor and an outcome variable is modeled both within clusters of data (e.g., observations within people, or children within schools) and across the sample as a whole.
This past summer, I watched a brilliant lecture series by Richard McElreath on Bayesian statistics. It honestly changed my whole outlook on statistics, so I couldn’t recommend it more (plus, McElreath is an engaging instructor). One of the most compelling cases for using Bayesian statistics is with a collection of statistical tools called linear mixed models or multilevel/hierarchical models. It’s common that data are grouped or clustered in some way.