Alternative tests for the significance of the intraclass correlation coefficients under unequal family sizes

Abstract

The intraclass correlation coefficient ρ is used as a measure of the degree of resemblance among family members with respect to some biological or psychological attribute, such as blood pressure level or IQ. Many studies have been done in the area. However, a significant gap in the literature is that few statistics are available to test the significance ( against ) of this important biological measure and no study is available as to the performance of these statistics with respect to level and power. In this paper we develop three large sample test statistics and compare these, in terms of level and power, using extensive simulation studies of these, the Wald test developed in this paper is found to have a very simple form and highest power while maintaining level well.