Reliability

Question 1

What is the meaning of reliability?

Answer 1

If findings are replicated (repeated either by the same researcher or another) consistently then they are said to be reliable. Reliability means consistency

Question 2

What are the 3 types of reliability?

Answer 2

• Internal reliability
• External reliability
• Inter-rater reliability

Question 3

What is the meaning of internal reliability?

Answer 3

Has the research been kept the same (standardised) for all participants such that it could be repeated (replicable) by another researcher to see if they get the same results

Question 4

What is the meaning of external reliability?

Answer 4

Are there enough participants to show the IV/DV effect? Has the research been carried out on multiple participants for results to suggest a consistent trend/pattern, there needs to be a large sample of participants. If there are too few, then anomalies (or flukes) can skew the data

Question 5

What is the meaning of inter-rater reliability (between observers - reliability)?

Answer 5

• Raters or observers of people behaviour - need to have some consistency in agreeing on what they are seeing/recording
• Observer reliability is assessed by measuring the extent to which different observers, scoring the same participants, achieve consistency i their “rating” of behaviours
• Scorers record observations individually and then the sets of data are compared to assess inter-rater reliability
• Specific type of reliability where there are multiple observers who watch the same participants
• f they independently record the same findings then we would say that he research has HIGH INTER-RATER RELIABILITY
• f they have recorded results differently then it would have LOW INTER-RATER RELIABILITY

Question 6

INTERNAL RELIABILITY - MILGRAM
Featured of this study that were kept the same (standardised) for all participants

Answer 6

All participants were given standardised, scripted verbal responses from the experimenter when they voiced their concerns/opposition to the study

Question 7

INTERNAL RELIABILITY - MILGRAM
Reasons why the procedure may not have been completely standardised for all participants

Answer 7

Even though there were 4 standard ‘prods’ it would have been difficult for the ‘experimenter’ to act in precisely the same way with each participant (“teacher”)

Question 8

INTERERNAL RELIABILITY - MILGRAM
Reasons why this study may have been (or would be) difficult to repeat

Answer 8

Ethical guidelines mean that this study couldn’t be carried out now (e.g. because of the level of deception and also the likelihood of harm being caused to participants)

Question 9

INTERNAL RELIABILITY - PILIAVIN
Featured of this study that were kept the same (standardised) for all participants

Answer 9

Researchers always entered the train carriage with 2 female students being observers and 2 males collapsing in front of passengers , either in a “drunk” or “ill” condition

Question 10

INTERNAL RELIABILITY - PILIAVIN
Reasons why the procedure may not have been completely standardised for all participants

Answer 10

A passenger may already have been standing in the place the ‘victim’ was supposed to collapse, meaning he couldn’t always collapse in the same place.
The floors of carriages may not have been equally clean (or equally dirty) across all 103 trials

Question 11

INTERNAL RELIABILITY - PILIAVIN
Reasons why this study may have been (or would be) difficult to repeat

Answer 11

This means that each participant was not receiving the same experience in the study, i.e. not standardised procedure - this therefore may have caused results to be unreliable

Question 12

INTERNAL RELIABILITY - BANDURA
Featured of this study that were kept the same (standardised) for all participants

Answer 12

• Same physical aggression shown to the bobo-doll
• Same verbal aggression shown to the bobo-doll
• Same order of conditions

Question 13

INTERNAL RELIABILITY - BANDURA
Reasons why the procedure may not have been completely standardised for all participants

Answer 13

Physical/verbal aggression conditions of bobo-doll would have varied in the words, actions and behaviour shown by the adult role models

Question 14

INTERNAL RELIABILITY - BANDURA
Reasons why this study may have been (or would be) difficult to repeat

Answer 14

Because of this variability of acting by the models, any future study would be hard to replicate, unless they used for example, filmed behaviour

Question 15

EXTERNAL RELIABILITY - MILGRAM
How many participants took part in the research in total?

Answer 15

40

Question 16

EXTERNAL RELIABILITY - MILGRAM

Question 16

EXTERNAL RELIABILITY - MILGRAM
Were participants split into groups or conditions? If so, how many participants were in each condition?

Answer 16

Always ‘teacher’ but no other conditions