A self administered assessment tool was developed to assess the
attitudes of the Food Business Operators to Food Safety Management
Systems. In consultation with two food safety specialists and
three statisticians, a number of questions were developed to assess
the Food Business Operator's attitude to Food Safety Management
Systems using a 6 point Likert scale. Cronbach's alpha coefficient
was used to test reliability and internal consistency. Some questions
were eliminated and the final questionnaire comprised 14 questions,
some of which were reverse phrased, with a Cronbach's alpha
coefficient of 0.5. The value is quite low but is affected in this case
by the heterogeneity of the items included.