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The words intraclass correlation (ICC) refer to a set of coefficients representing the relationship between variables of the same class. Variables of the same class share a common metric and variance, which generally means that they measure the same thing. Examples include twin studies and two or more raters evaluating the same targets. ICCs are used frequently to assess the reliability of raters. The Pearson correlation coefficient usually relates measures of different classes, such as height and weight or stress and depression, and is an interclass correlation.

Table 1 Data on Sociability of Dyads of Gay Couples
CouplePartner 1Partner 2CouplePartner 1Partner 2CouplePartner 1Partner 2
1181563021114043
2212273228124128
3243073537134237
4252493531144448
52629103825154850

Most articles on ICC focus on the computation of different ICCs and their tests and confidence limits. This entry focuses more on the uses of several different ICCs.

The different ICCs can be distinguished along several dimensions:

  • One-way or two-way designs
  • Consistency of order of rankings by different judges, or agreement on the levels of the behavior being rated
  • Judges as a fixed variable or as a random variable
  • The reliability of individual ratings versus the reliability of mean ratings over several judges

One-Way Model

Although most ICCs involve two or more judges rating n objects, the one-way models are different. A theorist hypothesizing that twins or gay partners share roughly the same level of sociability would obtain sociability data on both members of 15 gay couples from a basic sociability index. A Pearson correlation coefficient is not appropriate for these data because the data are exchangeable within couples—there is no logical reason to identify one person as the first member of the couple and the other as the second. The design is best viewed as a one-way analysis of variance with “couple” as the independent variable and the two measurements within each couple as the observations. Possible data are presented in Table 1. With respect to the dimensions outlined previously, this is a one-way design. Partners within a couple are exchangeable, and thus a partner effect would have no meaning. Because there is no partners effect, an ICC for consistency cannot be obtained, but only an ICC can be obtained for agreement. Within a couple, partner is a fixed variable—someone's partner can not be randomly select. Finally, there is no question about averaging across partners, so the reliability of an average is not relevant. (In fact, “reliability” is not really the intent.)

Table 2 gives the expected mean squares for a one-way analysis of variance. The partner effect can not be estimated separately from random error.

If each member of a couple had nearly the same score, there would be little within-couple variance, and most of the variance in the experiment would be a result of differences between couples. If members of a dyad differed considerably, the within-couple variance would be large and predominate. A measure of the degree of relationship represents the proportion (ρ) of the variance that is between couple variance. Therefore,

None

The appropriate estimate for ρICC, using the obtained mean squares (MS), would be

None

For this sample data, the analysis of variance summary table is shown in Table 3.

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