A5-A10 - Taylor (Monograph #3)

Question 1

What are CATEGORICAL Covariates and CONTINUOUS Covariates in the regression context?

Answer 1

A CATEGORICAL covariate is one that is discrete by nature, and possibly is non-numerical (such as gender).

A CONTINUOUS covariate is one that is non-discrete (such as age).

Question 2

Define LEVELS in the context of a Categorical Covariate.

Answer 2

Levels are the various possible values of the variate. These are represented as distinct 0 or 1 values within the GLM.

Note that the sum of all the levels of the variate will always be 1.