Stat Question: Can you use categorical variables in stepwise regression?

[psycstudent2018]

Im trying to assess the unique predictors in my DV by looking at 8 different IV's; some of which are dichotomous and others are continuous. Is this okay or do I need to do something different?

[futureresearcher333]

Hi psycstudent2018,

Yes, you can use categorical variables in stepwise regression! I recently just did this for an analysis for one of my dissertation aims and specifically performed a forward stepwise selection approach to do so. Also, I would suggest playing around with the p-value you set for entry into the stepwise selection. For me, I didn't have any variables added into my model until I set the p-value of 0.20 for entry. I wouldn't go any higher than that!