A Breakdown of Reliability Coefficients by Test Type and Reliability Method, and the Clinical Implications of Low Reliability

Abstract

The author presented descriptive statistics for 937 reliability coefficients for various reliability methods (e.g., alpha) and test types (e.g., intelligence). He compared the average reliability coefficients with the reliability standards that are suggested by experts and found that most average reliabilities were less than ideal. Correlations showed that over the past several decades there has been neither a rise nor a decline in the value of internal consistency, retest, or interjudge reliability coefficients. Of the internal consistency approaches, there has been an increase in the use of coefficient alpha, whereas use of the split-half method has decreased over time. Decision analysis and true-score confidence intervals showed how low reliability can result in clinical decision errors.

Key Words:

• clinical decision errors
• reliability
• true scores
• true-score confidence intervals