Performs a standardization of data (z-scoring), i.e., centering and scaling, so that the data is expressed in terms of standard deviation (i.e., mean = 0, SD = 1) or Median Absolute Deviance (median = 0, MAD = 1). When applied to a statistical model, this function extracts the dataset, standardizes it, and refits the model with this standardized version of the dataset. The normalize() function can also be used to scale all numeric variables within the 0 - 1 range.

standardize(
x,
robust = FALSE,
two_sd = FALSE,
weights = NULL,
verbose = TRUE,
...
)

# S3 method for numeric
standardize(
x,
robust = FALSE,
two_sd = FALSE,
weights = NULL,
verbose = TRUE,
reference = NULL,
...
)

# S3 method for data.frame
standardize(
x,
robust = FALSE,
two_sd = FALSE,
weights = NULL,
verbose = TRUE,
reference = NULL,
select = NULL,
exclude = NULL,
remove_na = c("none", "selected", "all"),
force = FALSE,
append = FALSE,
suffix = "_z",
...
)

unstandardize(
x,
center = NULL,
scale = NULL,
reference = NULL,
robust = FALSE,
two_sd = FALSE,
...
)

## Arguments

x A data frame, a vector or a statistical model (for unstandardize() cannot be a model). Logical, if TRUE, centering is done by subtracting the median from the variables and dividing it by the median absolute deviation (MAD). If FALSE, variables are standardized by subtracting the mean and dividing it by the standard deviation (SD). If TRUE, the variables are scaled by two times the deviation (SD or MAD depending on robust). This method can be useful to obtain model coefficients of continuous parameters comparable to coefficients related to binary predictors, when applied to the predictors (not the outcome) (Gelman, 2008). Can be NULL (for no weighting), or: For model: if TRUE (default), a weighted-standardization is carried out. For data.frames: a numeric vector of weights, or a character of the name of a column in the data.frame that contains the weights. For numeric vectors: a numeric vector of weights. Toggle warnings and messages on or off. Arguments passed to or from other methods. A dataframe or variable from which the centrality and deviation will be computed instead of from the input variable. Useful for standardizing a subset or new data according to another dataframe. Character vector of column names. If NULL (the default), all variables will be selected. Character vector of column names to be excluded from selection. How should missing values (NA) be treated: if "none" (default): each column's standardization is done separately, ignoring NAs. Else, rows with NA in the columns selected with select / exclude ("selected") or in all columns ("all") are dropped before standardization, and the resulting data frame does not include these cases. Logical, if TRUE, forces standardization of factors and dates as well. Factors are converted to numerical values, with the lowest level being the value 1 (unless the factor has numeric levels, which are converted to the corresponding numeric value). Logical, if TRUE and x is a data frame, standardized variables will be added as additional columns; if FALSE, existing variables are overwritten. Character value, will be appended to variable (column) names of x, if x is a data frame and append = TRUE. Used by unstandardize(); center and scale correspond to the center (the mean / median) and the scale (SD / MAD) of the original non-standardized data (for data frames, should be named, or have column order correspond to the numeric column). However, one can also directly provide the original data through reference, from which the center and the scale will be computed (according to robust and two_sd. Alternatively, if the input contains the attributes center and scale (as does the output of standardize()), it will take it from there if the rest of the arguments are absent.

## Value

The standardized object (either a standardize data frame or a statistical model fitted on standardized data).

## Note

When x is a vector or a data frame with remove_na = "none"), missing values are preserved, so the return value has the same length / number of rows as the original input.

## Model Standardization

If x is a model object, standardization is done by completely refitting the model on the standardized data. Hence, this approach is equal to standardizing the variables before fitting the model and will return a new model object. However, this method is particularly recommended for complex models that include interactions or transformations (e.g., polynomial or spline terms). The robust (default to FALSE) argument enables a robust standardization of data, i.e., based on the median and MAD instead of the mean and SD.

### Transformed Variables

When the model's formula contains transformations (e.g. y ~ exp(X)) the transformation effectively takes place after standardization (e.g., exp(scale(X))). Some transformations are undefined for negative values, such as log() and sqrt(). To avoid dropping these values, the standardized data is shifted by Z - min(Z) + 1 or Z - min(Z) (respectively).

Other transform utilities: data_rescale(), normalize(), ranktransform()

## Examples

# Data frames
summary(standardize(swiss))
#>    Fertility         Agriculture       Examination         Education
#>  Min.   :-2.81327   Min.   :-2.1778   Min.   :-1.69084   Min.   :-1.0378
#>  1st Qu.:-0.43569   1st Qu.:-0.6499   1st Qu.:-0.56273   1st Qu.:-0.5178
#>  Median : 0.02061   Median : 0.1515   Median :-0.06134   Median :-0.3098
#>  Mean   : 0.00000   Mean   : 0.0000   Mean   : 0.00000   Mean   : 0.0000
#>  3rd Qu.: 0.66504   3rd Qu.: 0.7481   3rd Qu.: 0.69074   3rd Qu.: 0.1062
#>  Max.   : 1.78978   Max.   : 1.7190   Max.   : 2.57094   Max.   : 4.3702
#>     Catholic       Infant.Mortality
#>  Min.   :-0.9350   Min.   :-3.13886
#>  1st Qu.:-0.8620   1st Qu.:-0.61543
#>  Median :-0.6235   Median : 0.01972
#>  Mean   : 0.0000   Mean   : 0.00000
#>  3rd Qu.: 1.2464   3rd Qu.: 0.60337
#>  Max.   : 1.4113   Max.   : 2.28566