Binning Continuous Data

Introduction

Binning a data set is a process of grouping measured data into data classes. These data classes can be used in various analyses. For example, in certain XLMiner routines, continuous variables are not supported. The Binning utility can be applied to these variables, and then this new binned variable can be chosen as a categorical variable, as well as the values the binned variable should take.

A variable can be binned in the following ways.

Equal count: When using this option, an equal number of bin intervals are created based on the number of records present. When this option is selected, the options Rank of the bin, Mean of the bin, and Median of the bin are enabled.

Mean of the bin: The mean is calculated as the average of the values in the bin interval. This mean value is assigned to each value of the variable in that interval.

Median of the bin: Records with the same binning value are counted and the median is calculated on the input value. The median value is then assigned to the binned variable.

Equal Interval: Equal interval is based on bin size. When this method is selected, the whole range is divided into bins with bin sizes specified by the user. The options of Rank and Mid value are available with this method.

Rank of the bin: In this option, each value in the variable is assigned a rank according to the start and increment value. 

Mid value: The mean is calculated as the average of the values in the bin interval. This mean value is assigned to each value of the variable in that interval.