On the use, the misuse, and the very limited usefulness of Cronbach’s alpha

Sijtsma, Klaas

doi:10.1007/s11336-008-9101-0

Cited by 2,814Psychometric Methodologies and TestingReliability and Agreement in MeasurementEducational Assessment and Pedagogy

On the use, the misuse, and the very limited usefulness of Cronbach’s alpha

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Sijtsma, Klaas·2009·Psychometrika

DOI 10.1007/s11336-008-9101-0PMC PMC2792363

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Abstract

This discussion paper argues that both the use of Cronbach's alpha as a reliability estimate and as a measure of internal consistency suffer from major problems. First, alpha always has a value, which cannot be equal to the test score's reliability given the interitem covariance matrix and the usual assumptions about measurement error. Second, in practice, alpha is used more often as a measure of the test's internal consistency than as an estimate of reliability. However, it can be shown easily that alpha is unrelated to the internal structure of the test. It is further discussed that statistics based on a single test administration do not convey much information about the accuracy of individuals' test performance. The paper ends with a list of conclusions about the usefulness of alpha.

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Reliability assumes that the scale is already unidimensional, and when it is not, reliability can be artificially inflated.
“However, reliability assumes that the scale is already unidimensional, and when it is not, reliability can be artificially inflated (see Al-Hoorie & Vitta, in press;Green, Lissitz, & Mulaik, 1977;Sijtsma, 2009).”
From The L2 motivational self system: A meta-analysis (2018) · cites this paper as Sijtsma, 2009
Section 4.2, “Alpha and Internal Test Structure” (page unavailable), explicitly says that unidimensionality or its absence has nothing to do with reliability. It also shows that tests with different numbers of factors can have the same alpha value, rather than saying that a non-unidimensional scale artificially inflates reliability. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Checked by a reasoning model — may be wrong.
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The Cronbach's α coefficients of the behavioral intention, five tourism motivation sub-dimensions, and perceived value scales were all above or equal to 0.800.
“The Cronbach’s α coefficients of behavioral intention, five sub-dimensions of tourism motivation, and perceived value were all above or equal to 0.800, meaning that the validity of these variables was good [68].”
From Health and Wellness Tourists’ Motivation and Behavior Intention: The Role of Perceived Value (2023) · cites this paper as [68]
The Introduction (page unavailable) says that treating a high alpha value as evidence of trait validity is a misinterpretation: validity may not have been investigated at all. The paper also does not report coefficients for the named tourism scales, so it cannot substantiate the citing sentence’s numerical results. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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Authors: Sijtsma, K.
Affiliations: Tilburg University (NL)
Corresponding author: Sijtsma, Klaas
ORCID: Sijtsma, Klaas
Venue: Psychometrika
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published: 2009-03
Volume: 74
Issue: 1
Pages: 107-120
ISSN: 0033-3123 (ISSN-L)
1860-0980
DOI: 10.1007/s11336-008-9101-0
PMC: PMC2792363
OpenAlex: W2129375743
Cited by: 2,814
References: 45
Citations by year: 2026: 225 · 2025: 158 · 2024: 188 · 2023: 221 · 2022: 255 · 2021: 232 · 2020: 198 · 2019: 195 · 2018: 216 · 2017: 197 · 2016: 179 · 2015: 153 · 2014: 119 · 2013: 95 · 2012: 80
FWCI: 50.84
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: hybrid
doi.org
Licence: cc-by-nc
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ (unspecified, 5785 d)
Locations: Psychometrika (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
PubMed (publishedVersion)
Research portal (Tilburg University) (submittedVersion)
Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Topics: Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Reliability and Agreement in Measurement
Social Sciences › Education › Educational Assessment and Pedagogy
Keywords: Cronbach's alpha, internal consistency, test reliability, measurement error, reliability estimation

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On the use, the misuse, and the very limited usefulness of Cronbach’s alpha

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