APA Dictionary of Psychology

the transformation of a set of raw data using an equation that involves addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division with a constant. An example is the transformation of x to y by means of the equation y = a + bx, where a and b are numerical constants. A plot of such transformed data would form a straight line. Data are often subjected to linearizing to determine whether a linear model provides a better fitting or more parsimonious explanation of the variables. Compare nonlinear transformation.