Which encoding technique is most appropriate for an ordinal categorical variable with a clear inherent ranking?
Data ScienceMedium
Data Science — Medium
Which encoding technique is most appropriate for an ordinal categorical variable with a clear inherent ranking?
Explanation
Label Encoding maps categories to integers (e.g., Low=0, Medium=1, High=2), which preserves the ordinal relationship between categories. One-Hot Encoding treats categories as independent, losing the ranking information. Binary and Target encodings are better suited for high-cardinality nominal data and do not inherently represent ordinal relationships as effectively as simple integer mapping.
