Scribd
Upload
6 views

Reliability of Measurement

Uploaded by

khadija
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
6 views

Reliability of Measurement

Uploaded by

khadija
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Reliability of measurement:

The reliability of a measurement relates to the stability or consistency of the results of that
measurement. For example, a person would be surprised if he or she stepped on a scale one day
and weighed 100 pounds and stepped on the same scale the next day and weighed 200 pounds.

Concept of reliability:
Reliability refers to the consistency of a measure. 1 A test is considered reliable if we get the
same result repeatedly. For example, if a test is designed to measure a trait (such as introversion),
then each time the test is administered to a subject, the results should be approximately the same.

Inconsistency in measurement:
Inconsistency in a measurement comes from error. error can come from a variety of sources.

The more common sources of error are :

 Observer error
 Environmental changes
 Participant changes

Observer Error:
Observational error (or measurement error) is the difference between a measured value of a
quantity and its true value.

For example:
Imagine four people using hand held stop watches to record the winner’s time in a 100 meter
dash. In this situation,it is highly likely that the four people will obtain four different times.to
some extent the time that each person record s is influenced by that person jugdement of when
the race started and ended and that person reflex time to push the buttons on the watch.thus,each
recorded time includes some error introduced by the observer.

Environmental changes:
There are small changes in the environment and these change influences the measurements.

There are so many environmental variables that it is impossible to obtain two identical
environmental conditions.

Environmental variables:

 Time of day
 Weather conditions
 Lighting

Participant changes:
The participant can change between measurements as a person focus and attention can change
quickly so changes may cause the measurements different which appear to be inconsistent.

For example:
Hunger probably does not lower intelligence but it can be a distraction that causes lower on an
IQ test.

So, it gives the concept that when error is large, reliability is low and when error is small
reliability is high.

You might also like