Hi, I request you please give me the detailed explanation answer for the following query. Can we pass binary integer categorical variable to PCA? Waiting for your reply. Thank you.

Hi Mohammad, thanks for reaching out! That's a great question! First, when it comes to theory you could use PCA with categorical binary variables. The question is how accurate the results would be. What you could do if you'd like to use PCA on categorical data is to create dummy variables. You can read a more detailed explanation here: http://staskolenikov.net/talks/Gustavo-Stas-PCA-generic.pdf Otherwise, you can use Multiple Factor Analysis instead. This method has the advantage of being able to handle a mixture of categorical and continuous variables better, as it balances the influence of each feature in the data set. Hope this helps! Best, 365 Eli

Hi Elitsa, Thank you very much for your answer. It's very helpful to me. Best! Khadeer Akbar

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Mohammad Khadeer Akbar

Last answered:

19 Nov 2021

Posted on:

30 Nov 2020

Resolved: p-value

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Elitsa Kaloyanova

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08 Dec 2020

Helpful answer

Mohammad Khadeer Akbar

Posted on:

19 Nov 2021

Resolved: p-value

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