John administered a 3 item depression questionnaire to 50 students. He was interested in assessing the reliability of his instrument. He returned a Cronbach's α of .29. He was concerned that this was low. Which of these might account for the small α ?
A) The sample size used.
B) The number of items on the questionnaire.
C) The researcher's bias.
D) How missing values were imputed.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Cronbach's α is influenced by the number of items on the questionnaire. With only 3 items, it is more difficult for the scale to be internally consistent. Larger scales with more items tend to have higher α coefficients.

John Administered a 3 Item Depression Questionnaire to 50 Students