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Alpha, Dimension-Free, and Model-Based Internal Consistency Reliability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Peter M. Bentler
Peter M. Bentler*
Affiliation:
Departments of Psychology and Statistics, UCLA
*
Requests for reprints should be sent to Peter M. Bentler, Departments of Psychology and Statistics, UCLA, Franz Hall, Box 951563, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

As pointed out by Sijtsma (in press), coefficient alpha is inappropriate as a single summary of the internal consistency of a composite score. Better estimators of internal consistency are available. In addition to those mentioned by Sijtsma, an old dimension-free coefficient and structural equation model based coefficients are proposed to improve the routine reporting of psychometric internal consistency. The various ways to measure internal consistency are also shown to be appropriate to binary and polytomous items.

Keywords

commonuniquetrueerror scores
Type
Theory and Methods
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 74 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 137 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 The Psychometric Society

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Footnotes

Research supported in part by grants DA00017 and DA01070 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. This paper is based in part on Bentler (2003).

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