Cited by 1,027Reliability and Agreement in MeasurementComputational and Text Analysis MethodsPsychometric Methodologies and Testing

Reliability in content analysis: some common misconceptions and recommendations.

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Krippendorff, K.·2004·Human Communication Research

Abstract

In a recent article published in this journal, Lombard, Snyder-Duch, and Bracken (2002) surveyed 200 content analyses for their reporting of reliability tests; compared the virtues and drawbacks of five popular reliability measures; and proposed guidelines and standards for their use. Their discussion revealed that numerous misconceptions circulate in the content analysis literature regarding how these measures behave and can aid or deceive content analysts in their effort to ensure the reliability of their data. This paper proposes three conditions for statistical measures to serve as indices of the reliability of data and examines the mathematical structure and the behavior of the five coefficients discussed by the authors, plus two others. It compares common beliefs about these coefficients with what they actually do and concludes with alternative recommendations for testing reliability in content analysis and similar data-making efforts.

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Authors
Krippendorff, K.
Corresponding author
Krippendorff, K.
Venue
Human Communication Research
Published
2004-07-01
Volume
30
Issue
3
Pages
411-433
ISSN
  • 0360-3989 (ISSN-L)
  • 1468-2958
OpenAlex
W4243989635
Cited by
1,027
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 42 · 2025: 100 · 2024: 108 · 2023: 108 · 2022: 124 · 2021: 135 · 2020: 105 · 2019: 57 · 2018: 44 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 41 · 2015: 25 · 2014: 26 · 2013: 21 · 2012: 15
FWCI
5.93
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Human Communication Research (publishedVersion)
  • ScholarlyCommons (University of Pennsylvania) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Reliability and Agreement in Measurement
  • Social Sciences › General Social Sciences › Computational and Text Analysis Methods
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
Keywords
inter-rater reliability, reliability coefficients, interobserver agreement, reporting reliability

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