Cronbach's alpha

Cronbach's alpha measures how well a set of items (or variables) measures a single
unidimensional latent construct. When data have a multidimensional structure, Cronbach's
alpha will usually be low. Technically speaking, Cronbach's alpha is not a statistical test - it is
a coefficient of reliability (or consistency).

Cronbach’s alpha can be written as a function of the number of test items AND the average
inter-correlation among the items. Below, for conceptual purposes, we show the formula for
the standardized Cronbach's alpha:

Here N is equal to the number of items and r-bar is the average inter-item correlation among
the items.

One can see from this formula that if you increase the number of items, you increase
Cronbach's alpha. Additionally, if the average inter-item correlation is low, alpha will be
low. As the average inter-item correlation increases, Cronbach's alpha increases as well.

This makes sense intuitively - if the inter-item correlations are high, then there is evidence
that the items are measuring the same underlying construct. This is really what is meant when
someone says they have "high" or "good" reliability. They are referring to how well their
items measure a single unidimensional latent construct.

Thus, if you have multi-dimensional data, Cronbach's alpha will generally be low for all
items. In this case, run a factor analysis to see which items load highest on which dimensions,
and then take the alpha of each subset of items separately. Note that a reliability coefficient of
.80 or higher is considered "acceptable" in most Social Science applications1.

To obtain Cronbach’s alpha run Analyse | Scale | Reliability analysis…

1
In same applications values of 0.60 and more are considered acceptable.
With the help of this procedure we can also improve the scale - we delete some items in order
to increase alpha, thus improving the scale. The F test is the extension of paired samples t-test,
similarly as ANOVA is an extension of independent samples t-test.

Example

VARIABLE LABELS yeareduc "Years of education"

/b31_1 "I often buy on sales"
/b31_5 "I do most of my shopping using credit cards or credit"
/b31_6 "When I buy several items at the same time, I often check the
bills"
/b31_7 "When I see a beautifil item, I first check the price"
/b31_14 "I hardly throw anything away"
/b31_16 "We have to teach young people to save".
RELIABILITY
 /VARIABLES=b31_1 b31_5 b31_6 b31_7 b31_14 b31_16
/FORMAT=NOLABELS
/SCALE(ALPHA)=ALL/MODEL=ALPHA
/STATISTICS=DESCRIPTIVE SCALE HOTELLING CORR ANOVA
/SUMMARY=TOTAL .

Reliability

Case Processing Summary

N %
Cases Valid 296 100.0
Excludeda 0 .0
Total 296 100.0
a. Listwise deletion based on all
variables in the procedure.

Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's
Alpha Based
on
Cronbach's Standardized
Alpha Items N of Items
.585 .593 6

Item Statistics

Mean Std. Deviation N

I often buy on sales 4.22 2.016 296
I do most of my shopping
using credit cards or 3.02 2.115 296
credit
When I buy several items
at the same time, I often 4.54 2.066 296
check the bills
When I see a beautifil
4.79 1.897 296
item, I first check the price
I hardly throw anything
4.47 2.114 296
away
We have to teach young
5.79 1.463 296
people to save
 Inter-Item Correlation Matrix

When I buy
I do most of several items When I see a We have to
my shopping at the same beautifil item, I teach young
I often buy using credit time, I often first check the I hardly throw people to
on sales cards or credit check the bills price anything away save
I often buy on sales 1.000 .078 .271 .300 .161 .060
I do most of my shopping
using credit cards or .078 1.000 .232 -.019 .062 .008
credit
When I buy several items
at the same time, I often .271 .232 1.000 .409 .227 .371
check the bills
When I see a beautifil
.300 -.019 .409 1.000 .233 .267
item, I first check the price
I hardly throw anything
.161 .062 .227 .233 1.000 .274
away
We have to teach young
.060 .008 .371 .267 .274 1.000
people to save
The covariance matrix is calculated and used in the analysis.

Item-Total Statistics

Scale Corrected Squared Cronbach's

Scale Mean if Variance if Item-Total Multiple Alpha if Item
Item Deleted Item Deleted Correlation Correlation Deleted
I often buy on sales 22.60 33.908 .296 .131 .551
I do most of my shopping
using credit cards or 23.81 37.309 .122 .077 .629
credit
When I buy several items
at the same time, I often 22.29 28.925 .528 .319 .440
check the bills
When I see a beautifil
22.04 32.622 .402 .246 .506
item, I first check the price
I hardly throw anything
22.35 32.982 .308 .118 .547
away
We have to teach young
21.04 36.961 .327 .196 .544
people to save

Scale Statistics

Mean Variance Std. Deviation N of Items

26.83 44.923 6.702 6

ANOVAa

Sum of
Squares df Mean Square F Sig
Between People 2208.702 295 7.487
Within People Between Items 1184.816 5 236.963 76.298 .000
Residual 4581.017 1475 3.106
Total 5765.833 1480 3.896
Total 7974.535 1775 4.493
Grand Mean = 4.47
a. The covariance matrix is calculated and used in the analysis.
 Hotelling's T-Squared Test

Hotelling's
T-Squared F df1 df2 Sig
389.425 76.829 5 291 .000
The covariance matrix is calculated and used in the analysis.