rela (version 4.1)

itemanal: Item analysis function

Description

This function enables the user to evaluate the functioning of two or more items as a coherent scale. Among the traditionally used Cronbach's Alpha the function also produces standardized estimates as well as Duhachek and Iacobucci's (2004) proposed standrad errors and respective confidence intervals for the reliability coefficients. Further, the function provides a bootstrap estimate of the convidance interval of both the regular and standardized alpha values. The function's output can be used to produce three plots: A density plot of the alpha and standardized alpha bootstrap simulations, a line plot of the "if item deleted" alpha values by each item and a star plot for all of the items for their respective "if item deleted" scale values. These plots can be called by submitting the output object of the function to the plot() statement. Similarly, the output can be viewed in an abbreviated form by submitting the output object to the summary() function.

Usage

itemanal(object, SE.par = 1.96, boots = 1000)

Arguments

object

Numeric dataset (usually a coerced matrix from a prior data frame) containing all items of the scale. The dataset is arranged observations (rows) by measure items (columns).

SE.par

Confidence interval corresponding Z-score. By default set to the 95 % confidence interval Z-score of 1.96.

boots

Number of boot strap samples computed. By default 1,000 simulations are estimated.

Value

• Output consists of a list with the following values:
• Variables
  General information about the entered items such as item type, number of cases used in the analysis, minimum, maximum values and item sum.
• Tendency
  Contains the measures of central tendancy: The respective item mean, median, standard deviation (SD), standard error of the mean (SE.mean) , lower and upper values of a 95 % confidence interval of the mean and item variance.
• Skewness
  Skewness, standard error of the skew, lower and upper values of the skew.
• Kurtosis
  Kurtosis, standard error of kurtosis as well as its respective 95 % confidence interval values.
• Covariance
  The covariance matrix of all items in the dataset.
• Correlation
  The correlation matrix of all submitted items.
• Alpha
  The number of items in the scale as well as the covariance based Cronbach's alpha estimate.
• Conf.Alpha
  Standard error of Cronbach's alpha with the associated lower and upper bound confidence interval values.
• Bootstrap.Simmulations
  The regular (covariance based) alpha bootstrap simulated estimates.
• Alpha.Bootstrap
  Bootstrap mean, standard error and confidence interval lower and upper limits.
• Std.Alpha
  The number of items in the scale as well as the correlation based Cronbach's alpha estimate.
• Conf.Std.Alpha
  Standard error of the standardized Cronbach's alpha with the associated lower and upper bound confidence interval values.
• Bootstrap.Std.Simmulations
  The standardized (correlation based) alpha bootstrap simulated estimates.
• Alpha.Std.Bootstrap
  Standardized bootstrap mean, standard error and confidence interval lower and upper limits.
• Scale.Stats
  Changes in scale statistics upon deletion of any one item in the scale. Contains scale mean and variance.
• Alpha.Stats
  Changes in the scale's reliability estimate alpha upon deletion of any one item. Contains, corrected total item correlation, squared multiple correlation, adjusted alpha statistic without given item.
• call
  Submitted function call.

concept

• item analysis
• rela
• reliability
• cronbach
• chajewski
• duhachek
• scale

Details

The function is sensitive to the how the dataset was compiled. Using the cbind function will often return a matirx that appears numeric but in reality functions as a numeric compiled list. If system error messages occur try transforming the dataset using as.matrix(data.frame(your.dataset)).

References

Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika, 16(3), 297-334. Duhachek, A. & Iacobucci, D. (2004). Alpha's standard error (ASE): An accurate and precise confidence interval estimate. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(5), 792-808. Kim, J., & Mueller, C. W. (1978). Introduction to factor analysis: What it is and how to do it. SAGE Publications: Newbury Park, CA. Nunnally, J. C. & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory (3 ed.). McGraw-Hill: New York, NY. Kaiser, H. F. & Cerny, B. A. (1979). Factor analysis of the image correlation matrix. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 39, 711-714. Pett, M. A., Lackey, N. R., & Sullivan, J. J. (2003). Making sense of factor analysis: The use of factor analysis for instrument development in health care research. SAGE Publications: Thousand Oaks, CA.

Examples

library(rela)

Belts <- Seatbelts[,1:7]
Belts.item <- itemanal(Belts)
summary(Belts.item)

Belts2 <- Belts[,-5]
Belts2 <- Belts2[,-5] 
Belts.item2 <- itemanal(Belts2)
summary(Belts.item2)