categorize {latentFactoR}

Categorize Continuous Data

Description

Categorizes continuous data based on Garrido, Abad and Ponsoda (2011; see references). Categorical data with 2 to 6 categories can include skew between -2 to 2 in increments of 0.05

Usage

categorize(data, categories, skew_value = 0)

Arguments

data

Numeric (length = n). A vector of continuous data with n values. For matrices, use apply

categories

Numeric (length = 1). Number of categories to create. Between 2 and 6 categories can be used with skew

skew_value

Numeric (length = 1). Value of skew. Ranges between -2 to 2 in increments of 0.05. Skews not in this sequence will be converted to the nearest value in this sequence. Defaults to 0 or no skew

Value

Returns a numeric vector of the categorize data

Author(s)

Maria Dolores Nieto Canaveras <[e-mail]>, Luis Eduardo Garrido <[e-mail]>, Hudson Golino <[e-mail]>, Alexander P. Christensen <[e-mail]>

References

Garrido, L. E., Abad, F. J., & Ponsoda, V. (2011).
Performance of Velicer’s minimum average partial factor retention method with categorical variables.
Educational and Psychological Measurement, 71(3), 551-570.

Golino, H., Shi, D., Christensen, A. P., Garrido, L. E., Nieto, M. D., Sadana, R., ... & Martinez-Molina, A. (2020). Investigating the performance of exploratory graph analysis and traditional techniques to identify the number of latent factors: A simulation and tutorial. Psychological Methods, 25(3), 292-320.

Examples

# Dichotomous data (no skew)
dichotomous <- categorize(
  data = rnorm(1000),
  categories = 2
)

# Dichotomous data (with positive skew)
dichotomous_skew <- categorize(
  data = rnorm(1000),
  categories = 2,
  skew_value = 1.25
)

# 5-point Likert scale (no skew)
five_likert <- categorize(
  data = rnorm(1000),
  categories = 5 
)

# 5-point Likert scale (negative skew)
five_likert <- categorize(
  data = rnorm(1000),
  categories = 5,
  skew_value = -0.45
)