Abstract The coherence of cold atom trapped and cooled by the partially coherent light (PCL) is investigated experimentally through Rabi oscillations. We control the degree of the spatial coherence of the laser beams by the modulation of electro-optic crystal. The experimental results show that the cold atoms captured by the different coherent degree of light have little different coherence properties and almost the same capacity of resisting disturbance, which indicates that the coherence of cold atom is affected weakly by the coherence of cooling field.