A Program to Select the Best Items that Maximize Cronbach's Alpha

Flebus, G

doi:10.1177/0013164490504010

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Resources for developing and validating new scales abound (e.g., Anastasi, 1988;Clark & Watson, 1995;Murphy & Davidshofer, 1998), but guidelines for reducing the length of already-existing scales are relatively scarce. Although computer programs have been developed to maximize alpha coefficients among subsets of items for this task (e.g., Flebus, 1990; Thompson, 1990), Stanton and colleagues (2002) pointed out that reducedlength scales must also preserve the known validity relations of the original scale. In other words, strategies based solely on maximizing internal consistency can result in an unnecessarily narrow measurement of constructs.…”

Section: Overview Of the Combinatorial Approach To Scale Reductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shorter can Also be Better: The Abridged Job in General Scale

Russell

Spitzmüller

Lin

et al. 2004

Educational and Psychological Measurement

162

132

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The Job Descriptive Index family of job attitude measures includes the Job in General (JIG) scale, a measure of global satisfaction with one’s job. The scale was originally developed and validated by Ironson, Smith, Brannick, Gibson, and Paul. Following structured scale reduction procedures developed by Stanton, Sinar, Balzer, and Smith, the current authors developed an abridged version of the JIG for use by practitioners and researchers of organizational behavior. They report the results of three validation studies documenting the process of scale reduction and the psychometric suitability of the reduced-length scale.

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Section: Overview Of the Combinatorial Approach To Scale Reductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shorter can Also be Better: The Abridged Job in General Scale

Russell

Spitzmüller

Lin

et al. 2004

Educational and Psychological Measurement

162

132

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Thompson (1990) developed a program that used the reverse approach: the selective deletion of items to maximize alpha. Flebus (1990) used an iterative search algorithm to locate the subtest with the maximum alpha.…”

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confidence: 99%

Empirical distributions of correlations as a tool for scale reduction

Stanton

2000

Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers

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A Visual Basic program for generating a distribution of correlations as a tool for scale reduction is presented; the program is available free from the author and runs on IBM-compatible personal computers under the Windows 95/98/NT operating systems. The program generates a list of item combinations and correlations between the unit weighted sum of the items and a criterion score. The list can be used to locate item combinations that have high correlations with the original full-length test. An example application is presented to illustrate the use of the program. The compiled program and its source code can be downloaded from http:¿personal.bgsu.edu/stanton/r_crunch/r_crun ch.zip.

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“…A different branch of psychometric optimization is the selection of items in Computerized Adaptive Testing (e.g., Wiberg, 2003 ), maximizing Cronbach’s alpha ( Flebus, 1990 ; Thompson, 1990 ), or creating test forms (e.g., Raborn et al, 2020 ). In these studies there is a constraint on the test length or the error variance.…”

Section: Previous Optimization Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Simple Model to Determine the Efficient Duration of Exams

Ellis

2020

Educational and Psychological Measurement

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This study develops a theoretical model for the costs of an exam as a function of its duration. Two kind of costs are distinguished: (1) the costs of measurement errors and (2) the costs of the measurement. Both costs are expressed in time of the student. Based on a classical test theory model, enriched with assumptions on the context, the costs of the exam can be expressed as a function of various parameters, including the duration of the exam. It is shown that these costs can be minimized in time. Applied in a real example with reliability .80, the outcome is that the optimal exam time would be much shorter and would have reliability .675. The consequences of the model are investigated and discussed. One of the consequences is that optimal exam duration depends on the study load of the course, all other things being equal. It is argued that it is worthwhile to investigate empirically how much time students spend on preparing for resits. Six variants of the model are distinguished, which differ in their weights of the errors and in the way grades affect how much time students study for the resit.

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A Program to Select the Best Items that Maximize Cronbach's Alpha

Abstract: A FORTRAN program is described that provides for a search for the maximum alpha coefficient through the incorporation of two common methods employed for item analysis along with priority information into a stepwise selection procedure.

Cited by 7 publications

References 1 publication

Shorter can Also be Better: The Abridged Job in General Scale

Shorter can Also be Better: The Abridged Job in General Scale

Empirical distributions of correlations as a tool for scale reduction

A Simple Model to Determine the Efficient Duration of Exams

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