Exam 1

  1. Metainformation

    Tag Value
    fileReliability_uu-reliability-006-en_uu-reliability-006-en
    nameuu-reliability-006-en
    sectionReliability
    typeschoice
    solutionFALSE, FALSE, TRUE, FALSE
    TypeConceptual, Case
    LanguageEnglish
    LevelStatistical Literacy

    Question

    A new test should measure in parents of school-age children the motivation to actively participate in school activities. A pilot study is being conducted on the practical usability and psychometric quality of the test with 40 Likert items. The test turns out to be too long; a considerable proportion of the participants fill in a randomly chosen number at the end of the test.

    As a result, in this pilot study, the estimation of the reliability of the test scores…


    1. FALSE: …remains the same. With a length of 40 questions, the reliability of the test scores will not be affected.
    2. FALSE: …is overestimated because the last items are not completed truthfully.
    3. TRUE: …is underestimated because the answers to the last items are not correlated.
    4. FALSE: We cannot know this based on this information.

    Solution

    The last items are not necessarily answered incorrectly (the “right” answer may be entered “accidentally”). However, these items will not be consistent with each other or the other items. Reliability measures the consistency of responses to the items. Since the last items were not answered consistently, the reliability of the test scores will be underestimated.