# Is it necessary to standardise the expected output

Normalisation transform data into a range: $$X_i = \dfrac{X_i - Min}{Max-Min}$$

Practically, I found out that the model doesn't generalise well when using normalisation of input data, instead of standardisation (another formula shown below).

Before training a neural net, data are usually standardised or normalised. Standardising seems good as it makes the model generalise better, while normalisation may make the model not working with values out of training data range.

So I'm using standardisation for input data (X), however, I'm confusing whether I should standardise the expected output values too?

For a column in input data: $$X_i = \dfrac{(X_i - Mean)}{Standard\ Deviation\ of\ the\ Column}$$

Should I apply this formula to the expected output values (labels) too?

• What is the difference between "standardization" and "normalization"? I think these terms would refer to the same concept and, from your equation, it seems like you're referring to some form of "normalization". Can you clarify that? Also, maybe you should describe the type of task you're trying to solve: is it classification or regression? How do your labels look like? Are they integers or floating-point numbers? Do they have a range? – nbro Jul 25 at 2:46
• normalisation: values are scaled into a range [a,b] that is: x = (x-min)/(max-min); and standardisation is x = (x-mean)/(sqrt(sum((x-mean)^2)/n)); they r different concepts – datdinhquoc Jul 26 at 3:20