Index of Qualitative Variation (IQV) Calculator

Your details

Raw counts: enter the number of observations in each category. Percentages: enter the share of each category (they will be normalised to sum to 100).
The number of distinct categories (K) in your variable. You can use 2-10.
Count or percentage for category 1.
obs
Count or percentage for category 2.
obs
Count or percentage for category 3.
obs
Count or percentage for category 4.
obs
Index of Qualitative Variation (IQV)Highly diverse
0.9

Ranges from 0 (no variation) to 1 (maximum variation)

Sum of squared percentages (Sp²)3,250
Total observations100
0.9
Very concentrated<0.2Moderately concentrated0.2-0.5Fairly diverse0.5-0.8Highly diverse0.8+

IQV = 0.9000: highly diverse - observations are spread nearly evenly across all categories.

  • Your IQV of 0.9000 is 90.0% of the maximum possible diversity (1.0) for a 4-category variable.
  • A perfectly even split across all 4 categories would give IQV = 1.0; all observations in one category would give IQV = 0.0.
  • The data shows high heterogeneity - no single category dominates, which is common in well-distributed survey responses or diverse populations.

Next stepTo compare diversity across variables with different numbers of categories, use IQV because it adjusts for K, unlike raw counts of distinct values.

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