Reliability: A Comparison of Absence Measures.

Abstract

Absenteeism is an important and costly problem for all organizations. This thesis investigates the reliability of different absence measures for a sample of Air force civil service employees to see if they are consistent is the way they use leave. The measures evaluated are sick leave, annual leave, and total leave absence in the form of both time lost and frequency. Internal consistency reliability estimates for each measure are calculated using the Spearman-Brown prophesy formula. The results show the frequency indices to be very reliable, but that a carefully defined and measured index like sick leave hours lost can provide comparable reliability estimates. The results are also compared to past absence research and evaluated on the basis of measurement differences. The implications of these results are then discussed in terms of absence behavior and organization policy. Finally, an alternative cost cutting recommendation for policy makers and suggestions for future research are presented. Keywords: Psychology; Behavioral science; Correlation techniques; Reliability; and Consistency.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 1985
Accession Number
ADA161744

Entities

People

  • Kenneth A. Kennedy

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Air Force
  • Applied Psychology
  • Behavioral Sciences
  • Civilian Personnel
  • Consistency
  • Data Analysis
  • Data Science
  • Government Employees
  • High Reliability
  • Information Science
  • Measurement
  • New York
  • Psychology
  • Reliability
  • Systems Management
  • United States

Readers

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  • Organizational Psychology.