Abstract
Self-perception is linked to a variety of psychosocial outcomes and its measurement has become a priority across a several disciplines. The Self-Perception Profile for Children (SPP-C) is commonly utilized to measure both global self worth and several important sub-domains of self-perception. Although much research has suggested this instrument possesses good internal consistency, previous investigations have primarily employed Cronbach's α; to estimate the stability of responding across items. This represents an important limitation, as α; is vulnerable to mis-estimation in the presence of correlated errors and non-τ-equivalent indicators, neither of which have been ruled out for the SPP-C. The present investigation initially examined the SPP-C responses from 106 girls, aged 8-12 to assess whether the assumptions underlying Cronbach's α; could be justified for this instrument. The investigation then re-estimated the internal consistency of the SPP-C using a covariance structure modeling approach. Results show that not a single scale of the SPP-C met all of the requirements for accurate estimation with α;. In two cases, α; was found to be meaningfully different from the reliability estimated with more durable methods. Lastly, the reliability of the Physical Appearance (PA) sub-scale was not significantly greater than the .70 cutoff for use as a research instrument. Discussion is centered on the appropriateness of Cronbach's α; for estimating the reliability of the SPP-C and recommends revision of the PA sub-scale.
Advisor
Sara K. Sifers
Committee Member
Lisa Perez
Committee Member
Cindra Kamphoff
Date of Degree
2012
Language
english
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Psychology
College
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Recommended Citation
Cero, I. (2012). Internal consistency of the self-perception profile for children: Using covariance structure modeling to overcome the limitations of Cronbach's α. [Master’s thesis, Minnesota State University, Mankato]. Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University, Mankato. https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/etds/23
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