Health Sciences 2801A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Internal Consistency, Confidence Interval

• School: Western University
• Department: Health Sciences
• Course: Health Sciences 2801A/B
• Professor: Christopher Lee

Document Summary

Internal consistency is concerned with unsystematic error in the scores obtained using a multiple indicator instrument. Unsystematic error is a type of measurement error that increases or deceases individual scores by an unpredictable amount. All measurement instruments are affected by unsystematic error to some degree. This reading introduces the concepts of item universe, alpha, standard error of measurement, and adjusted observed score. The individual indicators that compose an instrument can be viewed as part of a large, hypothetical set of indicators that serve to represent a construct. This large, hypothetical collection of indicators is called the item universe. Consists of five statements that respondents rate on a seven-point scale. The five items that compose the satisfaction with life scale are a subset of a much larger collection of hypothetical items that could serve to represent the construct of life satisfaction.