Abstract
Cronbach’s α is widely used in social science research to estimate the internal consistency of reliability of a measurement scale. However, when items are not strictly parallel, the Cronbach’s α coefficient provides a lower-bound estimate of true reliability, and this estimate may be further biased downward when items are dichotomous. The estimation of standardized Cronbach’s α for a scale with dichotomous items can be improved by using the upper bound of coefficient ϕ. SAS and SPSS macros have been developed in this article to obtain standardized Cronbach’s α via this method. The simulation analysis showed that Cronbach’s α from upper-bound ϕ might be appropriate for estimating the real reliability when standardized Cronbach’s α is problematic.
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Sun, W., Chou, CP., Stacy, A.W. et al. SAS and SPSS macros to calculate standardized Cronbach’s alpha using the upper bound of the phi coefficient for dichotomous items. Behav Res 39, 71–81 (2007). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03192845
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03192845