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Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences pp 1–3Cite as

Parallel-Forms Reliability

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Synonyms

Alternate-forms reliability; Coefficient of equivalence; Parallel-test reliability

Definition

Parallel forms of a test are different subsets of the same universe of items, which capture the same attribute with the same accuracy. As a measurement model for the scores of parallel forms, (strict) parallel measures are assumed, so that the correlation between the scores, i.e., the parallel-forms reliability or parallel-test reliability matches the reliability of both forms.

Introduction

Well-established approaches for the assessment of reliability, which is defined in classical test theory as the ratio of the so-called true variance to the observed variance, are as follows: the test-retest method (i.e., repeated examination of the same subjects with the same test), the parallel-test method (i.e., examination of the same subjects with two equivalent tests), and the split-half method, whereby a test consisting of several items is divided into two parallel parts. These methods have...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychology, Psychological Methods, Assessment, and Evaluation, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Norbert Hilger & André Beauducel

Authors
  1. Norbert Hilger
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  2. André Beauducel
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Norbert Hilger .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Humboldt University, Germany, Berlin, Germany

    Matthias Ziegler

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© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

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Hilger, N., Beauducel, A. (2017). Parallel-Forms Reliability. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1337-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1337-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

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