DATA

TRANSFORMATION
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Data transformations are mostly used for converting a non-normal variable into a new
variable which is approximately normally distributed.
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Drawbacks of data transformation:

1. it is not always successful.

2. it could be very difficult to interpret the output of the analysis if we work with
transformed variables
3. if our variable is not normal on some subgroups of the population and normal on
other subgroups, we must transform it for all the subgroups
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Before doing a transformation, we must build a histogram for our variable, in order to see:

• How it is skewed (positively or negatively)

• How much it is skewed (moderately or strongly)
TYPES OF TRANSFORMATIONS

For
•   moderately positively skewed data you can try to apply a square root transformation:
 
 
 
For strongly positively skewed variables, you can choose between the following two transformations:
 
or

 
TYPES OF TRANSFORMATIONS

•   moderately negatively skewed data you can try to apply the following transformation:
For
 
 
 
For strongly negatively skewed variables, you can choose between the following two
transformations:
 
or