RPART uses a different splitting procedure for continuous, ordinal and categorical variables. Is there a way to "inform" RPART about the variable type? For illustration, I have an ordinal variable with integer values (1,..,5). Right now, I need to coerce it into characters so RPART will not split it like a continuous variable.
I would like to refrain from changing all my variable types, just for RPART. I would prefer to declare it, somehow.
Thanks.