Intracluster Homogeneity

Intracluster (or intraclass) homogeneity is a concept related to the degree of similarity between elements in the same cluster. The intracluster (or intraclass) correlation coefficient, ρ, measures the degree of homogeneity among population elements within the sampling clusters. Intracluster homogeneity is computed as the Pearson correlation coefficient between pairs of elements that are in the same cluster.

In terms of the variance components in an analysis of variance (ANOVA), intracluster homogeneity measures the extent to which the total element variance in the population is due to the between-cluster variance. In other words, ρ measures intracluster homogeneity in terms of the portion of the total variance that is attributable to cluster membership. When there is complete homogeneity within clusters, the between-cluster variance accounts for all the variance ...