On Cronbach's Alpha as the Mean of All Possible k-Split Alphas. (30th September 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Warrens, Matthijs J.
• Other Names: Su Steve Academic Editor.
• Is Part Of: Advances in statistics. Volume 2014(2014)
• Publication Date: 2014-09-30
• Subjects: Statistics -- Periodicals; Statistics; Periodicals; 519.5
• DOI: 10.1155/2014/742863
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2356-6892

Abstract

Abstract : Coefficient alpha is the most commonly used internal consistency reliability coefficient. Alpha is the mean of all possiblek -split alphas if the items are divided intok parts of equal size. This result gives proper interpretations of alpha: interpretations that also hold if (some of) its assumptions are not valid. Here we consider the cases where the items cannot be split into parts of equal size. It is shown that if ak -split is made such that the items are divided as evenly as possible, the difference between alpha and the mean of all possiblek -split alphas can be made arbitrarily small by increasing the number of items.