Multilevel/Hierarchical Modeling in R

Multilevel models and data structures (review of linear regression models, recognizing grouped data, costs and benefits of multilevel modeling, con-cept of partial pooling). Fitting linear and generalized linear multilevel models in R (the lme4 pack-age, mixed-models formulas, lmer function, glmer function, varying inter-cepts and varying slopes models, how many groups? Fixed or random ef-fects models?). Bayesian multilevel modeling (motivation, prior and posterior distributions, implementation using RStan).