Abstract
In measurement studies the researcher may wish to test the hypothesis that Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient is the same for two measurement procedures. A statistical test exists for independent samples of subjects. In this paper three procedures are developed for the situation in which the coefficients are determined from the same sample. All three procedures are computationally simple and give tight control of Type I error when the sample size is 50 or greater.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Bose, S. The distribution of the ratio of variances of two samples drawn from a given normal bivariate correlated population.Sankhyā: The Indian Journal of Statistics, 1935,1, 65–72.
Feldt, L. S. The approximate sampling distribution of Kuder-Richardson reliability coefficient twenty.Psychometrika, 1965,30, 357–370.
Feldt, L. S. A test of the hypothesis that Cronbach's alpha or Kuder-Richardson coefficient twenty is the same for two tests.Psychometrika, 1969,34, 363–373.
Finney, D. J. The distribution of the ratio estimates of the two variances in a sample from a normal bivariate population.Biometrika, 1938,30, 190–192.
Hakstian, A. R. & Whalen, T. E. Ak-sample significance test for independent alpha coefficients.Psychometrika, 1976,41, 219–231.
Hogg, R. V. & Craig, A. T.Introduction to mathematical statistics (3rd ed.). New York: Macmillan, 1970, 187–188.
Kendall, M. G. & Stuart, A.The advanced theory of statistics (Vol. 1, 3rd ed.). London: Charles Griffin, 1969.
Kristof, W. The statistical theory of stepped-up reliability coefficients when a test has been divided into several equivalent parts.Psychometrika, 1963,28, 221–238.
Odell, P. L. & Feiveson, A. H. A. A numerical procedure to generate a sample covariance matrix.Journal of the American Statistical Association, 1966,61, 199–203.
Pitman, E. J. G. A note on normal correlation.Biometrika, 1939,31, 9–12.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The author is indebted to Jerry S. Gilmer for development of the computer programs used in this study.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Feldt, L.S. A test of the hypothesis that Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient is the same for two tests administered to the same sample. Psychometrika 45, 99–105 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02293600
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02293600