For descriptive purposes, means and standard deviations for the manifest variable scale scores are provided in Table 1. Scale internal consistency assessed via Cronbach’s alpha ranged from .60 (Externalizing) to .87 (Family Functioning). However, while frequently employed, the use of alpha is problematic since it is influenced by scale length, and more importantly, is not a measure of item homogeneity or unidimensionality (Schmitt, 1996). Based on discussion of Mean Inter-item Correlations (MICs) in Simms and Watson (2007), the MIC results for each scale displayed in Table 1 were all acceptable (i.e., between .15–.50), although the MIC for the Family Functioning composite was somewhat large, and suggests some item redundancy.
