[R] Need help with xgboost

[Joshua Clement]

Hi all,
I'm trying to learn how to use xgboost. I'm working with the 2016 GSS dataset (attached) and trying to determine what variables influence number of children. I've successfully used this to teach myself GLMs, decision trees, and random forests.
My problem is, I can't get the xgboost program (attached) to predict number of children in the testing set. Predictions range from 0.504 to 0.518, and number of children is supposed to be anywhere from 0 to 8, integers only. If anyone can show me what I'm doing wrong, I will be very grateful.
Thanks,Josh
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: xgb trial.R
URL: <https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/attachments/20190517/addb7c53/attachment.ksh>