Hello, I apologize if this seems like an obvious question, but I have been looking everywhere and have yet to find an answer. I am doing a multinomial regression with multinom() in the nnet package. I have a 3 level ordered response (ordered()) variable and 4 predictors, 3 of which are numerical and one which is an ordered factor (also ordered()) with 5 levels (a, b, c, d, e). My question is in regards to understanding the coefficient names of the ordered variable in the output. Specifically, I get this as the coefficient output of the function Coefficients: (Intercept) ageNum.L ageNum.Q ageNum.C ageNum^4 couvert.paysage.1500 heterogen.couvert.paysage.1500 ac 1 -3.741361 0.3574398 -0.9131615 0.02510015 0.13612309 -0.3204320 2.244231 2.357034 2 -2.019076 1.2342684 -1.3330470 0.53676536 0.04868537 -1.3867078 1.322942 4.115914 I am simply wondering what the ageNum.L, ageNum.Q, ageNum.A and ageNum^4 refer to? As it is an ordered variable, can I assume that multinom contrasts a to b, b to c, c to d and d to e? If I perform multinom with the same formula, but with the ordered predictor forced as a factor, I obtain this: Coefficients: (Intercept) ageNumb ageNumc ageNumd ageNume couvert.paysage.1500 heterogen.couvert.paysage.1500 ac 1 -4.447215 0.7876454 1.291553 0.9819608 0.4679982 -0.3204237 2.244232 2.357034 2 -3.676090 1.9392234 2.404509 2.0408820 1.9006754 -1.3867094 1.322924 4.115888 in which case it seems obvious that levels b, c, d and e are contrasted to level a. I really appreciate any help I could get. Thanks for you time! -- View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/nnet-Multinom-output-of-ordered-predictors-tp3470423p3470423.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.