What is the average EQ score?

An average by construction

Several commercial instruments report EQ on a scale built to have a mean of 100. On those tests the average is 100 not because researchers measured the population and found it there, but because the scoring formula moves whatever the norm sample produced onto that number. The average is an output of the scale’s construction, not a discovery about people.

So "is my score above average" is really a question about the norm sample: above the average of whom? A sample of managers on a leadership course sits differently from a sample of students, and the same raw answers can land ten points apart against the two. A test that does not say who is in its comparison group has answered "above average" with "above a group we will not describe".

Scales without an average

Percentage-of-maximum scores, the kind we publish, have no built-in average at all. A 72 means you scored 72 percent of the highest possible figure, which stands on its own without a comparison group. A percentile, by contrast, is nothing but a comparison, and inherits every question about who is being compared. Percentiles get their own page.

What to ask instead of "am I average"

• Which scale is this number on, and who built the norm sample behind it?
• What margin of error does the test publish for a single sitting?
• Would the people who know me recognise the result, or does it only describe how I answered?

How we handle it

We publish every score as a percentage of its own maximum with its margin printed beside it, and the method is public. The test is free to take; the free result shows your classification and the shape of your profile, and the full scored report, every figure with its margin, is available as a one-off purchase or inside membership.

We publish a live distribution of scores on this site rather than a borrowed average, and we do not report a percentile until 1,000 quality-passing sittings exist to compute one from.

The rest of this family

Every page here does the same job for a different number: the full set is indexed on the hub.