BACK TO BASICS: PERCENTAGE AGREEMENT MEASURES ARE ADEQUATE, BUT THERE ARE EASIER WAYS
Open accessAbstract
Percentage agreement measures of interobserver agreement or “reliability” have traditionally been used to summarize observer agreement from studies using interval recording, time‐sampling, and trial‐scoring data collection procedures. Recent articles disagree on whether to continue using these percentage agreement measures, and on which ones to use, and what to do about chance agreements if their use is continued. Much of the disagreement derives from the need to be reasonably certain we do not accept as evidence of true interobserver agreement those agreement levels which are substantially probable as a result of chance observer agreement. The various percentage agreement measures are shown to be adequate to this task, but easier ways are discussed. Tables are given to permit checking to see if obtained disagreements are unlikely due to chance. Particularly important is the discovery of a simple rule that, when met, makes the tables unnecessary. If reliability checks using 50 or more observation occasions produce 10% or fewer disagreements, for behavior rates from 10% through 90%, the agreement achieved is quite improbably the result of chance agreement.
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Calculating simple percentage agreement can also be used to establish agreement among coders.
“Calculating simple percentage agreement can also be used to establish agreement among coders [62].”
From A guide to using the Theoretical Domains Framework of behaviour change to investigate implementation problems (2017) · cites this paper as [62]
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Research works printed but not linked: 9
- Baer, D. M. Reviewer's comments: Just because it's reliable doesn't mean that you can use it. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1977, 10, 117- 119.
- Baer, D. M. "Perhaps it would be better not to know everything." Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1977, 10, 167-172.
- Birkimer, J. C. and Brown, J. H. A graphical judg- mental aid which summarizes obtained and chance reliability data and helps assess the believability of experimental effects. Journal of Applied Be- havior Analysis, 1979, 12, 523-533.
- Hartmann, D. P. Considerations in the choice of interobserver agreement. Journal of Applied Be- havior Analysis, 1977, 10, 103-116.
- Hopkins, B. L. and Hermann, J. A. Evaluating inter- observer agreement of interval data. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1977, 10, 12 1-126.
- Kelly, M. B. A review of the observational data- collection and reliability procedures reported in The Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. Jour- nal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1977, 10, 97- 101.
- Kratochwill, T. R. and Wetzel, R. J. Observer agreement, credibility, and judgment: Some con- siderations in presenting observer agreement data. journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1977, 10, 133-139.
- Siegel, S. Nonparametric statistics for the behavioral sciences. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956.
- Yelton, A. R., Wildman, B. G., and Erickson, M. T. A probability-based formula for calculating ob- server agreement. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1977, 10, 127-131.
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Atkins, L., Francis, J., Islam, R., O’Connor, D., Patey, A., Ivers, N., Foy, R., Duncan, E. M., Colquhoun, H., Grimshaw, J. M., et al. (2017) · Implementation Science · doi:10.1186/s13012-017-0605-9 · Cited by 3,819 · see citing works
Brown, W., Yen, P.-Y., Rojas, M., & Schnall, R. (2013) · Journal of Biomedical Informatics · doi:10.1016/j.jbi.2013.08.001 · Cited by 299 · see citing works
Brandt, C., Van Rooyen, C., & Cronje, H. (2016) · South African Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology · doi:10.7196/sajog.2016.v22i2.1077 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
- Authors
- Birkimer, J. C., & Brown, J. H.
- Affiliations
- University of Louisville (US)
- Corresponding author
- Birkimer, John C.
- Venue
- Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 1979-12
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 535-543
- ISSN
- 0021-8855 (ISSN-L)
- 1938-3703
- PMC
- PMC1311476
- OpenAlex
- W1974363412
- Cited by
- 103
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 11.18
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Reliability and Agreement in Measurement
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Behavioral and Psychological Studies
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Keywords
- interobserver agreement, chance-corrected agreement, temporal sampling
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