On Misconceptions and the Limited Usefulness of Ordinal Alpha

This article discusses the theoretical and practical contributions of Zumbo, Gadermann, and Zeisser’s family of ordinal reliability statistics. Implications, interpretation, recommendations, and practical applications regarding their ordinal measures, particularly ordinal alpha, are discussed. Gener...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Educational and psychological measurement 2018-12, Vol.78 (6), p.1056-1071
Main Author: Chalmers, R. Philip
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cronbach's alpha
Misconceptions
Statistics
Test Reliability
Test Theory
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This article discusses the theoretical and practical contributions of Zumbo, Gadermann, and Zeisser’s family of ordinal reliability statistics. Implications, interpretation, recommendations, and practical applications regarding their ordinal measures, particularly ordinal alpha, are discussed. General misconceptions relating to this family of ordinal reliability statistics are highlighted, and arguments for interpreting ordinal alpha as a measure of hypothetical reliability, as opposed to observed reliability, are presented. It is concluded that ordinal alpha should not be used in routine reliability analyses and reports, and instead should be understood as hypothetical tool, similar to the Spearman–Brown prophecy formula, for theoretically increasing the number of ordinal categorical response options in future applied testing applications.
ISSN:0013-1644
1552-3888
DOI:10.1177/0013164417727036