INTERPRETING THE LOGISTIC REGRESSION COEFFICIENTS.

This article presents information about interpreting the logistic regression coefficients. In linear regression analysis one evaluates the contribution of each independent variable to the model by testing for its statistical significance and then examining the substantive significance of its effect on the dependent variable. Statistical significance is evaluated using an F or t statistic to produce a probability (p) that one would find this strong a relationship in a sample this large if there really were no relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable. Substantive significance may be evaluated in one of several ways. One may examine the unstandardized regression coefficient to see whether the change in the dependent variable associated with a given amount of change in the independent variable is large enough to be concerned. One must have an idea beforehand how big a change needs to be before one is concerned with it and equivalently how big a change one is willing to ignore.