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What is coefficient alpha? An examination of theory and applications
Abstract
Psychological research involving scale construction has been hindered considerably by a wide-spread lack of understanding of coefficient alpha and reliability theory in general. A discussion of the assumptions and meaning of coefficient alpha is presented. This discussion is followed by a demonstration of the effects of test length and dimensionality on alpha by calculating the statistic for hypothetical tests with varying numbers of items, numbers of orthogonal dimensions, and average item intercorrelations. Recommendations for the proper use of coefficient alpha are of-fered. Coefficient alpha (Cronbach, 1951) is certainly one of the most important and pervasive statistics in research involving test construction and use. A review of the Social Sciences Cita-tions Index for the literature from 1966 to 1990 revealed that Cronbach's (1951) article had been cited approximately 60 times per year and in a total of 278 different journals. In addi-tion to the areas of psychology in which one may expect to see alpha used, such as educational, industrial, social, clinical, child, community, and abnormal psychology, this list of jour-nals included representatives from experimental psychology, so-ciology, statistics, medicine, counseling, nursing, economics,
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“The reliability of each scale was tested with the Cronbach's Alpha: all the values are over 0.7, which implies that there is an overall adequate internal consistency and that the measures could be considered reliable (Cortina, 1993;Taber, 2017).”
From The self-reinforcing effect of digital and social exclusion: The inequality loop (2022) · cites this paper as Cortina, 1993
In the citing paper
“Internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) ranged from 0.70 to 0.79, which is within what is generally considered the acceptable range of 0.65–0.80 [47,48]”
From Gender Differences in Coping and Psychological Adaptation during the COVID-19 Pandemic (2023) · cites this paper as [47]
In the citing paper
“We chose these two tools, instead of traditional measures of internal consistency (i.e., Cronbach's Alpha [Cronbach, 1951] or KR-20 for dichotomous data [Kuder and Richardson, 1937]) because unlike traditional estimates which do not assess homogeneity (Cortina, 1993; Clark and Watson, 1995), omega and CFA, simultaneously provide estimates of both.”
From A psychometric analysis of the reading the mind in the eyes test: toward a brief form for research and applied settings (2015) · cites this paper as Cortina, 1993
In the citing paper
“Also, Cronbach's alpha is highly biased by long tests; Cortina (1993) recommended Cronbach's alpha not be used for tests with more than 40 items and the Eyes Test, at 36 items, is close to this limit.”
From A psychometric analysis of the reading the mind in the eyes test: toward a brief form for research and applied settings (2015) · cites this paper as Cortina, 1993
In the citing paper
“Reliability estimates are biased towards number of items, and on scales with small numbers of items the alpha is a poor indicator of measure fit (Cortina 1993).”
From Sleep Problems Across Development: A Pathway to Adolescent Risk Taking Through Working Memory (2015) · cites this paper as Cortina 1993
Citations
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“However, although alpha is an estimate of internal consistency, it does not indicate unidimensionality (Cortina, 1993; Cronbach, 1951).”
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Values and Organizational Justice
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“Given the small numbers of items, it was judged acceptable for this study (e.g., Cortina, 1993; Nunnally, 1978).”
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Coefficient Alpha: An Engineer's Interpretation of Test Reliability
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“Of note, Cronbach’s a depends on the number of items included in a scale, and commonly referenced rules of thumb for this parameter are based on scales with several items (Cortina, 1993; Streiner, 2003).”
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Analysis of barriers, supports and gender gap in the choice of STEM studies in secondary education
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“Furthermore, the reliability of the questionnaires was tested with Cronbach’s alpha, a widely used method to determine the reliability of a questionnaire (Amirrudin et al., 2021; Cortina, 1993).”
MethodCorporate and Individual Influences on Managers' Social Orientation
Marz, J. W., Powers, T. L., & Queisser, T. (2003) · Journal of Business Ethics · doi:10.1023/a:1024795705173 · Cited by 84
Eder, R., & Arnberger, A. (2012) · Environmental Management · doi:10.1007/s00267-012-9912-8 · Cited by 84
“Although the item ‘‘dog feces’’ loaded on two factors and Factor three’s Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was below the critical value of 0.60 (Cortina 1993), a similar procedure to that used for factors 1 and 2 was employed.”
MethodInfluentialPsychometric Evaluation and Experimental Validation of the Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale
Papousek, I., Ruggeri, K., Macher, D., Paechter, M., Heene, M., Weiss, E. M., Schulter, G., & Freudenthaler, H. H. (2011) · Journal of Personality Assessment · doi:10.1080/00223891.2011.627959 · Cited by 97
“The high internal consistency coefficient of the total STARS scale might have suggested unidimensionality of the STARS, but a high alpha coefficient does not necessarily indicate that the data structure is unidimensional (cf. Cortina, 1993; Huysamen, 2006).”
BackgroundKossek, E. E., Dass, P., & DeMarr, B. J. (1994) · Human Relations · doi:10.1177/001872679404700905 · Cited by 84
Weight‐bearing MRI of patellofemoral joint cartilage contact area
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“9 indicate excellent agreement among the measurements (18).”
BackgroundReliability and validity of the mobile phone usability questionnaire (MPUQ)
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Patent-to-Patent Similarity: A Vector Space ModelPreprint
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“Interrelatedness of items as represented by the alpha coefficient was at .691 and thereby close to the average split-half reliability, as would be expected given that twin-paired items showed comparable standard deviations (see supplemental Table S1; cf. Cortina, 1993).”
BackgroundMethodResultInfluentialReceived Support, Anticipated Support, Social Class, and Mortality
KRAUSE, N. M. (1997) · Research on Aging · doi:10.1177/0164027597194001 · Cited by 83
Refining perception-based farmer typologies with the analysis of past census data
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“In light of the small number of items measuring these constructs, four and two items, respectively, this is an acceptable result (Cortina, 1993).”
BackgroundSharkness, J., & DeAngelo, L. (2010) · Research in Higher Education · doi:10.1007/s11162-010-9202-3 · Cited by 86
“In the context of scale development, researchers using factor analysis are interested in whether the interrelationships between the variables in a scale can be best explained by one and only one underlying factor (Clark and Watson 1995; Cortina 1993; Gardner 1995; Reise et al. 2000; Russell 2002).”
BackgroundMethodBőthe, B., Koós, M., Tóth-Király, I., Orosz, G., & Demetrovics, Z. (2019) · The Journal of Sexual Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.jsxm.2019.01.312 · Cited by 80
“The ASRS demonstrated slightly lower internal consistency than the suggested threshold in the present study presumably as a result of administering a wide range of symptoms with relatively low number of items [53].”
BackgroundResultEntrepreneurs’ achieved success: developing a multi-faceted measure
Wach, D., Stephan, U., Gorgievski, M. J., & Wegge, J. (2018) · International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal · doi:10.1007/s11365-018-0532-5 · Cited by 82
“New scales often exhibit low reliabilities, especially when the number of items is low (Cortina, 1993).”
BackgroundPlayful work design and employee work engagement: A self-determination perspective
Scharp, Y. S., Bakker, A. B., & Breevaart, K. (2022) · Journal of Vocational Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2022.103693 · Cited by 105
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduateteaching assistants teaching self-efficacy
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The Early Childhood HOME Inventory and HOME-Short Form in Differing Racial/Ethnic Groups
Sugland, B. W., Zaslow, M. J., Smith, J. R., Jeanne Brooks-gunn, B., Coates, D. L., Blumenthal, C., Moore, K. A., Griffin, T. M., & Bradley, R. H. (1995) · Journal of Family Issues · doi:10.1177/019251395016005007 · Cited by 86
The Brief Aggression Questionnaire: Structure, Validity, Reliability, and Generalizability
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“…correlated with number of scale items (holding mean interitem D ow nl oa de d by [U ni ve rs ity o f F lo rid a] a t 0 8: 28 2 7 N ov em be r 2 01 5 correlation [MIC] constant; see Cortina, 1993, p. 101), we expected the BAQ’s subscales to have acceptable—but not excellent—internal consistency.”
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“Cronbach’s alpha is widely used as the measure of reliability, but it only captures one component of reliability, there are many others, and it depends on the sources of variance that are considered to be relevant (Cortina, 1993).”
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Use of internal consistency coefficients for estimating reliability of experimental task scores
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“Generalized coefficient alpha When conducting research with paper-and-pencil measures, researchers frequently report reliability coefficients and most often coefficient alpha, an internal consistency estimate of reliability (Cortina, 1993; Hogan, Benjamin, & Brezinski, 2000; Peterson, 1994).”
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Religiousness and Major Depression among Bereaved Family Caregivers: A 13–Month Follow-Up Study
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“The five items used to measure religiousness were all significantly correlated in pair-wise comparisons (Table 2), and the summary score for religiousness had good internal consistency with a Cronbach alpha coefficient (42) of 0.”
MethodGreenberg, B., & Carlos, M. C. (2018) · Ear and Hearing · doi:10.1097/aud.0000000000000583 · Cited by 85
The influence of institutional pressures on climate mitigation and adaptation strategies
Daddi, T., Bleischwitz, R., Todaro, N. M., Gusmerotti, N. M., & Giacomo, M. R. D. (2019) · Journal of Cleaner Production · doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118879 · Cited by 81
“…standards” 352 and “These initiatives ensure greater ability in the governance of the processes of prevention 353 and management of environmental risks”; 354 For NORMPRESS, the Alpha Cronbach coefficient was 0.708, which can be considered acceptable 355 i.e. higher than 0.7 (Cortina, 1993).”
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Munezane, Y. (2019) · Studies in Higher Education · doi:10.1080/03075079.2019.1698537 · Cited by 94
“Moreover, a number of studies criticise the universal application of Cronbach’s alpha for reliability estimates because of its susceptibility to the number of items (Cortina 1993; Kline 1999; Field 2005; Tavakol and Dennick 2011), as shown by its formula.”
BackgroundPatient Satisfaction in Medicine and Dentistry
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“Although this implies that the tools contain items that could be equivalent measurements with satisfactory unidimensionality for scale composition [26], these studies barely followed the guidelines of the COSMIN checklist (Consensus-based Standards for the Selection of Health Status Measurement Instruments) [27], whic…”
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“The Cronbach’s alphas of each factor ranged from 0.85 to 0.92, placing them above the common threshold of 0.7 (Cortina, 1993).”
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A Latent Class Approach to Estimating Test-Score Reliability
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“However, this is likely because the measure is too short, and thus validity assessment techniques are too conservative (Cortina, 1993).”
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Hwang, H., & Nam, S. (2020) · GM crops & food · doi:10.1080/21645698.2020.1840911 · Cited by 80
Bruhn, M. (2003) · European Journal of Marketing · doi:10.1108/03090560310486942 · Cited by 81
“To evaluate the reliability of the measuring instruments, a Cronbach's alpha ( Cortina, 1993”
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“Simply examining reliability via Cronbach alpha is not by itself sufficient to allow the use of mean or sum scores [48], and a confirmation of unidimensionality and monotonicity is necessary before considering its use as an indicator of reliability [49].”
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“However, it would be beneficial for future research to add more work experience items in order to increase scale reliability (Cortina, 1993).”
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“An exploratory principal component analysis without rotation was then conducted (Cortina, 1993).”
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“Although the institutional and ecological dimensions had relatively low reliabilities, Cortina (1993) and Nunnally and Bernstein (1994) suggest that scales with a small number of items (i.e., 6 or less) and an alpha of about .60 may be acceptable in exploratory studies.”
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A coefficient alpha for test-retest data.
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“In addition, a number of articles have been written discussing when coefficient alpha should and should not be applied (e.g., Cortina, 1993; Green, Lissitz, & Mulaik, 1977; Miller, 1995; Osburn, 2000; Schmitt, 1996).”
BackgroundMethodConsumer Attitudes toward Farm-Animal Welfare: The Case of Laying Hens
Heng, Y., Peterson, H. H., & Li, X. (2013) · RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · doi:10.22004/ag.econ.165936 · Cited by 79
“A varimax rotation of an initial factor analysis of those eleven items identified three factors, and a Chronbach’s α test was conducted to test the reliability and acceptability of each factor (Cortina, 1993).”
MethodSimpson, G., & Clifton, J. (2016) · Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.rser.2016.06.060 · Cited by 79
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“Despite these caveats, α may still often be a reasonable lower bound estimate of true score variance within a scale (Cortina, 1993);6 and regardless of the internal consistency estimate used, these analyses generally revealed that the reduced length of the subcomponents brought expected reductions…”
BackgroundMethodResultInfluentialMental toughness and self-efficacy of elite ultra-marathon runners
Brace, A. W., George, K., & Lovell, G. P. (2020) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0241284 · Cited by 78
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“The values of Cronbach’s α were all higher than 0.7 (Cortina, 1993).”
InfluentialA Reliability Generalization Study on the Survey of Perceived Organizational Support
Hellman, C. M., Fuqua, D. R., & Worley, J. A. (2006) · Educational and Psychological Measurement · doi:10.1177/0013164406288158 · Cited by 78
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“60 still indicates a satisfactory measurement consistency (Cortina, 1993 ).”
BackgroundEffects of Nationality, Gender, and Religiosity on Business-Related Ethicality
Peterson, R. A., Albaum, G., Merunka, D. R., Munuera, J. L., & Smith, S. M. (2010) · Journal of Business Ethics · doi:10.1007/s10551-010-0485-2 · Cited by 78
“Although these values appear low, given the research conditions they were reasonable (see Cortina, 1993; Duhachek and Iacobucci, 2004; Peterson, 1994).”
BackgroundSeabrook, R. C., Ward, L. M., Reed, L. A., Manago, A. M., Giaccardi, S., & Lippman, J. R. (2016) · Emerging Adulthood · doi:10.1177/2167696815623686 · Cited by 78
“Although the internal reliability of some subscales may seem low (e.g., .65 and .67 for Factors 2 and 4, respectively), it is important to note that Cronbach’s a increases as the number of items increases (Cortina, 1993).”
BackgroundExtending the job demands-resources model with guanxi exchange
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“On the other hand, none of the reliabilities were below 0.60, which can be considered adequate given the relatively small number of items used for the measures included in this study (cf. Cortina, 1993).”
InfluentialNg, V., Cao, M., Marsh, H. W., Tay, L., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2016) · Psychological Assessment · doi:10.1037/pas0000396 · Cited by 77
Macioszek, E., ŚWIERK, P., & Kurek, A. (2020) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su12083285 · Cited by 77
Haas, M., Jakubovski, E., Fremer, C., Dietrich, A., Hoekstra, P. J., Jäger, B., Müller‐Vahl, K., & The EMTICS Collaborative Group (2021) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2021.626459 · Cited by 83
Verhagen, T., van den Hooff, B., & Meents, S. (2015) · Journal of the Association for Information Systems · doi:10.17705/1jais.00388 · Cited by 84
“Lower reliability (Cortina, 1993; Lewis et al., 2005).”
BackgroundLee, J., & Beeler, C. S. (2006) · Event Management · doi:10.3727/152599507783948684 · Cited by 77
Hassel, A. J., Danner, D., Schmitt, M., Nitschke, I., Rammelsberg, P., & Wahl, H. (2010) · Clinical Oral Investigations · doi:10.1007/s00784-010-0437-3 · Cited by 77
“The higher is the correlation between several items of a scale, the higher the Cronbach's alpha gets, whereas a coefficient above 0.70 indicates good reliability [ 22 ].”
BackgroundInfluentialKim, S., & Hagtvet, K. A. (2003) · Structural Equation Modeling A Multidisciplinary Journal · doi:10.1207/s15328007sem1001_5 · Cited by 77
“Internal consistency is also not a sufficient indicator of unidimensionality or homogeneity of measures unless the correlation matrix is of a unit rank implying unidimensionality (Cortina, 1993; Green, Lissitz, & Mulaik, 1977).”
BackgroundDavenport, E. C., Davison, M. L., Liou, P., & Love, Q. U. (2015) · Educational Measurement Issues and Practice · doi:10.1111/emip.12095 · Cited by 77
White, S. F., Cruise, K. R., & Frick, P. J. (2009) · Behavioral Sciences & the Law · doi:10.1002/bsl.911 · Cited by 77
“An alpha of .70 or greater is generally considered adequate (Cortina, 1993).”
Shapiro, C. A., Parker, J. M., Toma, S., Ayon, C., Zimmerman, H. B., Roth-Johnson, E. A., Hancock, S. P., Levis‐Fitzgerald, M., & Sanders, E. R. (2015) · Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education · doi:10.1128/jmbe.v16i2.1045 · Cited by 83
Caste and Choice: The Influence of Developmental Idealism on Marriage Behavior
Allendorf, K., & Thornton, A. (2015) · American Journal of Sociology · doi:10.1086/681968 · Cited by 77
KRAUSE, N. M., Pargäment, K. I., Hill, P. C., & Ironson, G. H. (2016) · The Journal of Positive Psychology · doi:10.1080/17439760.2015.1127991 · Cited by 77
“Second, as Cortina (1993) points out, estimates of Cronbach’s alpha decrease as the number of dimensions in a construct increase.”
BackgroundInfluentialOlya, H., Alipour, H., & Gavilyan, Y. (2018) · Journal of Sustainable Tourism · doi:10.1080/09669582.2018.1511718 · Cited by 77
“The alpha values for all factors were greater than the commonly accepted level (a > .70) (Cortina, 1993).”
BackgroundKilgus, S. P., Eklund, K. R., von der Embse, N. P., Taylor, C. N., & Sims, W. A. (2016) · Journal of School Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jsp.2016.07.001 · Cited by 76
Williams, A. B., Dzierzewski, J. M., Griffin, S. C., Lind, M. J., Dick, D. M., & Rybarczyk, B. D. (2019) · Behavioral Sleep Medicine · doi:10.1080/15402002.2019.1578772 · Cited by 78
“906 for this scale, indicative of excellent reliability (Cortina, 1993).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialCastañeda, J. V., Bronfman, N. C., Cisternas, P. C., & Repetto, P. B. (2020) · Natural Hazards · doi:10.1007/s11069-020-04060-2 · Cited by 76
“As noted above, the reliability values of the three preparedness measures are higher than 0.7 (Cortina 1993; Gliem and Gliem 2003).”
BackgroundInfluentialWillingness of the Jordanian Population to Receive a COVID-19 Booster Dose: A Cross-Sectional Study
Al-Qerem, W. A., Bawab, A. Q. A., Hammad, A. M., Ling, J., & Alasmari, F. F. (2022) · Vaccines · doi:10.3390/vaccines10030410 · Cited by 77
The giving type: Identifying donors
de Oliveira, A. C. M., Croson, R. T. A., & Eckel, C. C. (2010) · Journal of Public Economics · doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2010.11.012 · Cited by 76
“where N is the number of measures (Cortina, 1993).”
Questioning the model minority: Studies of Asian American academic performance.
Tran, N., & Birman, D. (2010) · Asian American Journal of Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0019965 · Cited by 76
The Effect of Early Entrepreneurship Education: Evidence from a Randomized Field ExperimentPreprint
Huber, L. R., Sloof, R., & van Praag, M. (2012) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.2044735 · Cited by 76
“Pfeiffer and Reuss (2008) use a simulation model calibrated to German data to get an idea of the financial returns to investments in skills that the Cunha and Heckman (2007) model may imply.”
BackgroundMethodJob autonomy, well-being, and health : a study among Dutch health care workers
JONGE, J. D. (1996) · Research Publications (Maastricht University) · doi:10.26481/dis.19960125jj · Cited by 79
Hoxha, V., & Sadiku, S. (2019) · Property Management · doi:10.1108/pm-01-2019-0002 · Cited by 75
Bayaga, A., & du Plessis, A. (2023) · Education and Information Technologies · doi:10.1007/s10639-023-12194-6 · Cited by 119
“Neverthe-less, some indicators with low factor loadings and non-uniqueness were removed, for example as a recommendation by Cortina (1993).”
Metadata
- Authors
- Cortina, J. M.
- Venue
- Journal of Applied Psychology
- Published
- 1993-02
- Volume
- 78
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 98-104
- ISSN
- 0021-9010 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1854
- OpenAlex
- W2117012826
- Cited by
- 8,810
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2026: 523 · 2025: 499 · 2024: 518 · 2023: 606 · 2022: 639 · 2021: 685 · 2020: 589 · 2019: 474 · 2018: 407 · 2017: 411 · 2016: 418 · 2015: 428 · 2014: 437 · 2013: 372 · 2012: 309
- FWCI
- 29.15
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Applied Psychology (publishedVersion)
- 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 › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Psychological Testing and Assessment
- Keywords
- Cronbach's alpha, internal consistency, reliability theory, scale development, test length, dimensionality
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