Multiple‐choice items are a mainstay of achievement testing. The need to adequately cover the content domain to certify achievement proficiency by producing meaningful precise scores requires many high‐quality items. More 3‐option items can be administered than 4‐ or 5‐option items per testing time while improving content coverage, without detrimental effects on psychometric quality of test scores. Researchers have endorsed 3‐option items for over 80 years with empirical evidence—the results of which have been synthesized in an effort to unify this endorsement and encourage its adoption.
The meta-analysis of coefficient alpha across many studies is becoming more common in psychology by a methodology labeled reliability generalization. Existing reliability generalization studies have not used the sampling distribution of coefficient alpha for precision weighting and other common meta-analytic procedures. A framework is provided for a statistically grounded meta-analysis of coefficient alpha using its sampling distribution. Two empirical examples are offered to illustrate these methods, and limitations of reliability generalization are described.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.