Nonattending Respondent Effects on Internal Consistency of Self-Administered Surveys: A Monte Carlo Simulation Study

Abstract

This research investigated the effects of types and prevalence of response patterns that might be provided by nonattending respondents on Cronbach’s alpha. Three simulated data sets, one for each value of Cronbach’s alpha .700, .800, and .900, were constructed for 100 respondents on 50 one-to-seven Likert items. Participants were replaced randomly in each population by one of eight response patterns at 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% replacement levels. Effects were greater as a function of increased prevalence in the respondent group; however, as few as 5% of certain types of nonattending patterns had strong, inflating effects on alpha.