Python Feature Engineering Cookbook

Implementing mode or frequent category imputation

Mode imputation consists of replacing missing values with the mode. We normally use this procedure in categorical variables, hence the frequent category imputation name. Frequent categories are estimated using the train set and then used to impute values in train, test, and future datasets. Thus, we need to learn and store these parameters, which we can do using scikit-learn and Feature-engine's transformers; in the following recipe, we will learn how to do so.

If the percentage of missing values is high, frequent category imputation may distort the original distribution of categories.