ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R

Advances in Psychological Science ›› 2015, Vol. 23 ›› Issue (5): 755-765.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2015.00755

• Meta-Analysis • Previous Articles     Next Articles

A Reliability Meta-Analysis for 44 Items Big Five Inventory: Based on the Reliability Generalization Methodology

LI Hongyan1; XU Jianping1; CHEN Jiyue1; FAN Yexin1,2   

  1. (1 School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University; Beijing Key Lab for Applied Experimental Psychology, Beijing 100875, China) (2 Xuanwu Hospital Medical University, Beijing 100053, China)
  • Received:2014-08-26 Online:2015-05-15 Published:2015-05-15
  • Contact: XU Jianping, E-mail: xujp@bnu.edu.cn

Abstract:

Based on Reliability Generalization (RG) approach, this meta-analysis study focused on 85 English papers chosen from 782 papers (in both English and Chinese) about 44-Item Big Five Inventory (BFI-44) published in the past 24 years (1991~2014). This study analyzed the amount of variability in Cronbach's coefficient alpha of every dimension in BFI-44 and examined predictor variables, including sample size, subjects’ nationality, test language, average age and gender ratio, which were used for further investigation of their impact on the reliability of BFI-44 by using regression analysis. The study results showed that the Cronbach's coefficient alpha of each dimension reach nearly 0.8. The sample size, nationality and gender ratio variables influence BFI-44 dimensions on different levels. There are two suggestions for the use of the BFI-44. First, researchers should report the Cronbach's coefficient alpha of his/her own samples to avoid the reliability induction error; secondly, researchers should pay attention to the effect of sample size, nationality and gender ratio on Cronbach's coefficient alpha.

Key words: Big Five Inventory (BFI-44), personality test, reliability generalization, meta-analysis