Thanks for taking the time to respond Paige! Output attached below. Degrees of freedom for the LSMEANS are testing the hypothesis that estimate is equal to zero.This is done via a t-test and is usually the number of data points used, minus 1. Degrees of freedom for the Type 3 tests are testing a different hypothesis, whether or not the estimates of all the different levels of a variable are all equal; this is usually done via an F-test, and involves the number of levels AND the number of replicate observations at each level. So, yes, the LSMEANS test can have degrees of freedom around 60 and the Type 3 tests can have a DF in the thousands. I see nothing incongruous or obviously wrong here. Gotcha. That makes sense. So relative to a dataset where each subject experiences each item once, the fact that each level is repeated 168 times is driving the rise in the degrees of freedom in the type 3 tests? That would be great as opposed to me not having correctly specified the dependency inherent in having the same two levels presented repeatedly. Lastly, despite the title of this post, I believe (can't prove it, but I certainly believe it) that SAS computes the correct degrees of freedom given the model specification. I say this because not only my experience, but the experience of 22 bazillion, 800 thousand and 42 real-life applications (and counting) seem to indicate that SAS gives the correct degrees of freedom. Usually, the error is specifying the model improperly rather than SAS computing the wrong degrees of freedom for the model specified. Definitely. I'm certain SAS is estimating the DFs correctly. The potential for my Incorrect specification of the model was what I had in mind.
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