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Generalizability of Stratified-Parallel Tests

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Nageswari Rajaratnam ,
Lee J. Cronbach  and
Goldine C. Gleser
Nageswari Rajaratnam
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
Lee J. Cronbach
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
Goldine C. Gleser
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
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Extract

One of the major concerns of reliability theory has been the estimation of the reliability of a composite measure from the degree of agreement among its component parts. In the classical theory, formulas were developed under the assumption that the parts are strictly equivalent. It was later shown that the same formulas follow from various sets of weaker assumptions which require the composites to be strictly equivalent and require the parts to have a certain homogeneity of statistical properties, but not necessarily to be equivalent. An alternative model which has received increasing attention in recent years regards a given measure as a random sample from a universe of measures whose homogeneity or equivalence is not specified a priori, and a composite test as a random sample of items from a universe of not-necessarily-equivalent items. This too permits an internal-consistency estimate of reliability. Both the equivalent-composites model and the randomsampling model appear to be unduly restrictive and unrealistic; we propose here to develop the implications of a third model in which a test is considered to have been formed by stratified sampling of items.

Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 1965 , pp. 39 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © 1965 Psychometric Society

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Footnotes

*

This manuscript was completed prior to Dr. Rajaratnam's death in December, 1963, at which time she was on the staff of the University of Minnesota. These investigations were conducted at the University of Illinois, under grant M-1839 from the National Institute of Mental Health. The present addresses of the junior authors are: Cronbach, School of Education, Stanford University; Gleser, School of Medicine, University of Cincinnati.

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