The fitted age slope is very small and negative, about efficacy points per year, with no conventional evidence against a zero linear slope: , . The model explains only about 0.0367% of the observed efficacy variation. These results concern a linear association, not proof of no possible age relationship or a causal effect of ageing.
The descriptive statistics report 2466 observed ages and efficacy scores, with no missing values for either variable. Age ranges from 14 to 97 years, with sample mean 52.689 years and sample standard deviation 19.064 years. Efficacy ranges from 0 to 16, with sample mean 9.348 and sample standard deviation 3.176 scale points. The standard deviations use different units and should not be compared as though their numerical ratio measured relative substantive variability. The efficacy mean retains the conflict with Question 1's group summaries; that conflict is not resolved by this separate regression output.
A simple linear regression models , where is efficacy and is age in years. Ordinary least squares chooses the coefficients to minimize the residual sum of squares. From the printed coefficients the fitted line isHolding to this model, ten additional years correspond to fitted scale points. For example, the fitted mean is about 9.453 at age 20 and 9.261 at age 80, a difference of about points. These are fitted means, not exact predictions of individual scores. The line does not imply that every person's efficacy falls at that rate, nor that cross-sectional age differences identify within-person changes over time.
The intercept is the predicted mean at age zero, about 9.517. Since zero is outside the observed 14–97 age range, its direct interpretation requires extrapolation. The printed standard error of 0.188043 and yield the extremely small displayed p-value for a zero intercept. That test does not test whether age is a useful predictor. Recentring age at its observed sample mean would put the intercept near , the fitted mean at a substantively relevant reference age. This agrees with the rounded overall efficacy mean.
The age standard error is 0.003356 points per year. The coefficient divided by this standard error gives , agreeing with the printed t value. Estimating an intercept and one regression slope from 2466 observations leaves residual statistical degrees of freedom. Under a correctly specified normal linear model, the Student t-distribution provides the stated two-sided p-value. At 5%, or 1%, it does not reject . The p-value is not a 34.2% probability that age has no effect, and nonrejection does not establish a practically negligible effect size.[ref]
Summarizing Linear Model Fits in the R documentation. Value: coefficient estimate, standard error, two-sided t and p columns; residual degrees of freedom
A 95% confidence interval calculated from the printed estimate and standard error is approximatelyor about points per decade. It includes zero and gives the scale of slopes compatible with these summaries and assumptions. Assessing a practically negligible effect would require an explicit substantive tolerance and an appropriate equivalence test, not simply the fact that . A nonlinear association could also coexist with a near-zero overall linear slope.
The coefficient of determination is , meaning that the fitted line explains about of the sample's centred efficacy sum of squares compared with an intercept-only fit. This is not 36.7%, a fraction of people whose efficacy is predicted correctly, or the proportion of efficacy caused by age. The adjusted coefficient of determination, approximately , is slightly negative because its penalty for estimating the extra coefficient exceeds the tiny improvement in fit. It need not be constrained to be nonnegative and does not mean a negative amount of explained variation.
The overall on 1 and 2464 statistical degrees of freedom, with , tests the same zero-slope hypothesis as the age t test because there is only one predictor. The simple-regression output identities give and ; the printed numbers agree allowing their displayed precision. The signed Pearson correlation coefficient is consequently about . These are related summaries of the same weak linear association, not independent corroborating tests.
The residual standard error of 3.177 points estimates the typical unexplained error scale under the fitted model. It is close to the efficacy sample standard deviation, as expected when the line explains almost none of the variation. It is not a standard error of the slope or a guarantee that each individual's prediction error lies within 3.177 points. The residual summary spans roughly to , with sample median about 0.573 and central quartiles about and . An ordinary least-squares fit with an intercept has zero mean residual, not necessarily zero median residual. These few quantiles cannot establish normality, constant conditional spread, absence of outliers or linearity. The apparent last-decimal discrepancies among rounded error scales and other summary fields do not force an additional contradiction: their rounding intervals admit compatible regression summaries.
The conventional uncertainty calculations assume independent, mean-zero errors conditional on age, an appropriate linear mean, and homoscedasticity; normal errors give the usual exact finite-sample t and F calibration. Large samples can relax some distributional requirements but do not remove confounding, selection bias or dependence. A residual-versus-fitted plot could reveal curvature or changing spread, and a normal probability plot could assess error shape; neither plot can be reconstructed from the printed residual quantiles. A prediction interval for an individual includes residual variation and is wider than a confidence interval for the mean response. The supplied output supports a very weak, imprecisely signed linear association with little predictive gain from age alone, while leaving nonlinear, causal and design-based questions unresolved.
Read conditionally, the fitted slope says that a one-point higher skill score is associated with about 0.209 more household devices in the fitted conditional expectation. The printed summary also claims a significant slope and about 28.93% explained sample variation. Those claims cannot be assembled into one valid fitted model: several regression identities fail, so a single verified coefficient-and-uncertainty report is unavailable.
The response is a device count, while the predictor is a skill score. A simple linear regression models , where is the device count and the skill score. Ordinary least squares chooses the intercept and regression slope to minimize the residual sum of squares. The regression slope describes a conditional association, not the causal effect of training or acquiring a device.
The descriptive statistics put the device count between and , with sample mean about and sample standard deviation about among records. Skill scores range from to , with sample mean about and sample standard deviation about among records. Two missing skill values account for the stated two deleted records; because device counts have no missing values, the regression complete-case sample has observations. Estimating two regression coefficients leaves residual statistical degrees of freedom, matching that part of the output. The units of the two standard deviations differ, so comparing with does not establish that skill is more variable in a substantive sense.
If the coefficient estimates are trusted, the fitted values follow . The intercept predicts about devices at a skill score of zero; zero is within the stated score range, but precision and the number of observations near zero are not shown. A five-point increase in score corresponds to about additional fitted devices and a ten-point increase to about . At a score of ten the fitted value is about , and at 24 it is about . Expected counts may be fractional even though individual counts are integers. These are conditional interpretations of the coefficient fields, not reconstructed raw observations or validated individual predictions.
A coefficient's standard error estimates its sampling uncertainty, whereas the residual standard error describes unexplained response variation. For the intercept, , agreeing with the printed and rounded . Conditional on the model assumptions, this would reject a zero intercept at conventional significance levels. The intercept test is not a test of whether skills predict devices. For the slope, the printed would reject at 5% but not 1%; it does not assign a probability to the null hypothesis or measure the usefulness of prediction. The significance stars simply encode thresholds and add no independent evidence.[ref]
Summarizing Linear Model Fits in the R documentation. Value: coefficient, standard-error, two-sided t and p columns; sigma, residual degrees of freedom and F statistic
The slope row fails its own arithmetic check:At statistical degrees of freedom the ratio gives a two-sided p-value about , while the printed gives about ; neither is . Thus the choice of which source field is trusted changes the apparent strength of evidence, including the 1% decision. A 95% confidence interval built conditionally from the printed estimate and standard error would be about , but it is not a verified interval from a coherent fitted model. In fact, using the printed residual standard error , the complete predictor sample size and predictor standard deviation gives a slope standard error near , not .
The printed coefficient of determination would mean that the fitted line explains of the complete-case sample's centred device-count sum of squares relative to an intercept-only fit; remains unexplained by that comparison. It is not the percentage of devices caused by skill, the fraction of correctly predicted households, or a measure of future predictive accuracy. The adjusted coefficient of determination is consistent with that and the given sample size, allowing rounding. The small adjustment reflects fitting one slope among many cases; it does not validate the model.
For a one-predictor ordinary least squares fit with an intercept and the usual common-variance standard errors, the simple-regression output identities requireHere the printed slope t gives , the printed F field says , and the printed instead implies . These cannot all hold. Moreover, on and statistical degrees of freedom has p-value about , not . Reading the printed F p-value alone would give a 1% significant test of the zero-slope model, but its reported calibration is incompatible with its statistic. No significance label resolves these identities.
There is also a contradiction that does not depend on tail probabilities. Ordinary least squares with an intercept makes the arithmetic mean of fitted values equal the arithmetic mean of observed responses on the analysed records. The printed coefficients and predictor mean give . Deleting two device counts anywhere in the printed range , and allowing the reported overall mean to be rounded, would leave the complete-case device mean between approximately and . The mean bounds after deleting bounded observations therefore rule out reconciling with the response summary merely by citing those two missing predictor values. This is not the mistaken assumption that full-sample and complete-case sample means must always be identical.
If its own field were trusted, residual standard error estimates the unexplained response standard deviation, in device-count units. It is neither the standard error of the slope nor a guarantee that every prediction is accurate to devices. The residual five-number summary has extremes near and and median near , with central quartiles near and . The roughly central median does not establish normally distributed errors, homoscedasticity, independence or a linear conditional expectation. A residual-versus-fitted plot could check curvature and spread; a normal probability plot could assess an error-shape approximation. Neither diagnostic can be recovered from five residual quantiles alone. Individual prediction intervals include response variation as well as coefficient uncertainty and are wider than confidence intervals for the conditional expectation.
For conventional finite-sample t and F calibration, a normal linear model assumes independent mean-zero normal errors of common variance with an appropriate predictor specification. Mean-zero errors conditional on skill and adequate sampling remain essential even when large-sample approximations relax normality. A bounded count response can have nonconstant conditional variance, so residual diagnostics and a scientifically suitable response model matter; count data do not become normally distributed just because the sample is large. Poisson regression is one possible alternative to investigate, but its own conditional mean–variance assumptions and the bounded device range require assessment, not automatic substitution. Complete-case selection can also bias the fitted association if it depends on the response in a relevant way. The only safe summary is conditional: the printed slope is positive, but the numerical effect, its standard error, t/F evidence and explanatory fit require a corrected, coherent output before a single definitive regression claim is made.