The observed residuals (obtained with residuals
) are simply equal to the observed - fitted values. Dividing the observed residuals by their corresponding standard errors yields (internally) standardized residuals. These can be obtained with rstandard
.
The rstudent
function calculates externally standardized residuals (studentized deleted residuals). The externally standardized residual for the $i$th case is obtained by deleting the $i$th case from the dataset, fitting the model based on the remaining cases, calculating the predicted value for the $i$th case based on the fitted model, taking the difference between the observed and the predicted value for the $i$th case (the deleted residual), and then standardizing the deleted residual. The standard error of the deleted residual is equal to the square root of the sampling variance of the $i$th case plus the variance of the predicted value plus the amount of (residual) heterogeneity from the fitted model (for fixed-effects models, this last part is always equal to zero).
If a particular study fits the model, its standardized residual follows (asymptotically) a standard normal distribution. A large standardized residual for a study therefore may suggest that the study does not fit the assumed model (i.e., it may be an outlier).
See also influence.rma.uni
for other leave-one-out diagnostics that are useful for detecting influential cases in models fitted with the rma.uni
function.