Reliability and Validity (RM P2)

Question 1

What is reliability?

Answer 1

Consistency

Question 2

What is Internal Reliability?

Answer 2

Each participant in a study is treated the same way

Question 3

What is External Reliability?

Answer 3

Same/similar results found after repeated tests

Question 4

Assessment of reliability

Answer 4

1) Test-retest reliability (external): - Test the same person twice
- Same test, same sample, ensure time gap
2) Inter-observer reliability: - Compares observations from different observers
3) - Measured using a correlation (should exceed +0.80 or 80% of the time) for reliability
- Spearman/Pearson’s correlation coefficient to measure correlation

Question 5

How to improve reliability

Answer 5

Repetition of the study (check the results correlate again)

Question 6

What is validity?

Answer 6

Accuracy (representativeness)

Question 7

What is internal validity?

Answer 7

• Measuring what it’s meant to measure
• Ensure the IV is the only thing affecting the DV

Question 8

What is external validity?

Answer 8

• Generalisable beyond experimental setting
• Ecological validity: is it a realistic setting?
• Population validity: is it an applicable sample?
• Temporal Validity: does it stand the ‘test of time’?

Question 9

Assessment of validity

Answer 9

1) Face validity: whether it looks like it measures what it should (‘eyeballing’), surface level
2) Concurrent validity: whether findings are similar to those on a well-established test, need two tests to correlate similarly to check accuracy

Question 10

Improving validity

Answer 10

• Larger sample size
• More realistic setting