1. One of the main issues concerns the scale’s internal consistency. This refers to the degree to which the items that make up the scale ‘hang together’ 2. One of the most commonly used indicators of internal consistency is Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Ideally, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of a scale should be above 0.7 3. Cronbach alpha values are, however, quite sensive to the number of items in the scale. With short scales (eg scales with fewer than ten items, it is common to find quite low Cronbach values (eg 0.5). In this case, it may be more appropriate to report the mean inter-item correlaon for the items. 4. The reliability of a scale can vary depending on the sample with which it is used. It is therefore necessary to check that each of your scales is reliable with your parcular sample 5. If your scale contains some items that are negavely worded (common in psychological measures), these need to be ‘reversed’ before checking reliability. Interpreng the Output: Bahagian_B 1. Check the Inter-Item Correlaon Matrix for negave values. All values should be posive, indicang that the items are measuring the same underlying characterisc. The presence of negave values could indicate that some of the items have not been correctly reverse scored. Incorrect scoring would also show up in the Item-Total Stascs table with negave values for Corrected Item Total Correlaon values. These should be checked carefully if you obtain a lower than expected Cronbach alpha 2. Check the Cronbach’s alpha value shown in the Reliability Stascs table. Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized Items N of Items .837 .880 15 3. The Corrected Item Total Correlaon values shown in the Item Total Stascs table give you an indicaon of the degree to which each item correlaons with the total score. a. Low values (less than 0.3) here indicate that the item is measuring something different from the scale as a whole. b. If your scale’s overall Cronbach alpha is too low (eg less than 0.7) and you have checked for incorrectly scored items, you may need to consider removing items with low-item total correlaons 4. In the column headed Alpha if Item Deleted, the impact of removing each item from the scale is given. a. Compare these values with the final alpha obtained. b. If any of these values in this column are higher than the final alpha value, you may want to consider removing this item from the scale.