Generalized mixed‐effects random forest: A flexible approach to predict university student dropout

We propose a new statistical method, called generalized mixed‐effects random forest (GMERF), that extends the use of random forest to the analysis of hierarchical data, for any type of response variable in the exponential family. The method maintains the flexibility and the ability of modeling complex patterns within the data, typical of tree‐based ensemble methods, and it can handle both continuous and discrete covariates. At the same time,...