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Test “Reliability”: Its Meaning and Determination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Lee J. Cronbach
Lee J. Cronbach*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Abstract

The concept of test reliability is examined in terms of general, group, and specific factors among the items, and the stability of scores in these factors from trial to trial. Four essentially different definitions of reliability are distinguished, which may be called the hypothetical self-correlation, the coefficient of equivalence, the coefficient of stability, and the coefficient of stability and equivalence. The possibility of estimating each of these coefficients is discussed. The coefficients are not interchangeable and have different values in corrections for attentuation, standard errors of measurement, and other practical applications.

Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 1947 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © 1947 The Psychometric Society

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