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POHow can I take multiple vectors and recode their datatypes in R?
 

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  1. POHow can I take multiple vectors and recode their datatypes in R?
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    <h3>I'm looking for an elegant way to change multiple vectors' datatypes in R.</h3> <p>I'm working with an educational dataset: 426 students' answers to eight multiple choice questions (<code>1</code> = correct, <code>0</code> = incorrect), plus a column indicating which instructor (<code>1, 2, or 3</code>) taught their course.</p> <p>As it stands, my data is sitting pretty in <code>data.df</code>, like this:</p> <p><pre><code> str(data.df) 'data.frame': 426 obs. of 9 variables: $ ques01: int 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 ... $ ques02: int 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ... $ ques03: int 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 ... $ ques04: int 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ... $ ques05: int 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 ... $ ques06: int 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 ... $ ques07: int 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 ... $ ques08: int 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 ... $ inst : num 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ... </code></pre></p></p> <p>But those <code>ques0x</code> values aren't <strong>really</strong> integers. Rather, I think it's better to have R treat them as experimental factors. Same goes for the "inst" values.</p> <h3>I'd love to turn all those <code>int</code>s and <code>num</code>s into <code>factors</code> </h3> <p> Ideally, an elegant solution should produce a dataframe&mdash;I call it <code>factorData.df</code>&mdash;that looks like this: </p> <pre><code> str(factorData.df) 'data.frame': 426 obs. of 9 variables: $ ques01: Factor w/ 2 levels "0","1": 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 2 ... $ ques02: Factor w/ 2 levels "0","1": 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 ... $ ques03: Factor w/ 2 levels "0","1": 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 ... $ ques04: Factor w/ 2 levels "0","1": 2 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 ... $ ques05: Factor w/ 2 levels "0","1": 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 ... $ ques06: Factor w/ 2 levels "0","1": 2 1 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 2 ... $ ques07: Factor w/ 2 levels "0","1": 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 1 1 2 ... $ ques08: Factor w/ 2 levels "0","1": 1 1 2 2 2 1 2 2 1 2 ... $ inst : Factor w/ 3 levels "1","2","3": 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ... </code></pre> <p><p>I'm fairly certain that whatever solution you folks come up with, it ought to be easy to generalize to any n number of variables that'd need to get reclassified, and would work across most common conversions (<code>int -> factor</code> and <code>num -> int</code>, for example).</p> <h3> No matter what solution you folks generate, it's <strong>bound</strong> to be more elegant than mine</h3> <p><p>Because my current clunky code is just 9 separate <code>factor()</code> statements, one for each variable, like this</p> <pre> factorData.df$ques01 </pre> <p> I'm brand-new to R, programming, and stackoverflow. Please be gentle, and thanks in advance for your help! </p>
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      1. POHow can I take multiple vectors and recode their datatypes in R?
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    1. CO@briandk: Since the questions can only be correct or incorrect, you might be better converting columns 1-8 to logical vectors rather than factors. (Factors would be appropriate for, say, the answers to multiple choice questions, where there are more than 2 possibilities.)
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      1. POHow can I take multiple vectors and recode their datatypes in R?
      1. USRichie Cotton
    2. CO@Richie: thanks for the suggestion! I'm not familiar with logical datatypes in vectors. If they are a datatype just like nums, ints, and factors, then would your suggestion be to just use lapply to turn columns 1-8 into logical factors?
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